Expedient
by SwiftKick
Summary: In order to cement a truce between the two villages, Konoha and Iwa exchange recently graduated academy students. Fortunately, if anything were to go wrong, Haruno Sakura was just average enough to risk losing. AU.
1. How Good It Can Be

**Title:** Expedient

**Summary:** In order to cement a truce between the two villages, Konoha and Iwa exchange recently graduated academy students. Fortunately, if anything were to go wrong, Haruno Sakura was just average enough to risk losing. AU.

**Disclaimer:** Unfortunately, I do not own Naruto or any of its affiliations…I am merely borrowing its characters and settings to indulge my own fantasies and then share said fantasies with other people who equally do not own Naruto. I am not making any profit off this.

**Author's Note: ** That's right. Starting off with old-school Sakura! Prepare for actual character development.

**Chapter One:** How Good it Can Be

O O O

Two men, well on in years and both sporting white hair, stood on the observation deck, their traditional Kage robes billowing out with the breeze. The official council meeting between their respective villages had ended not too long ago and each was now reflecting on the proposal that had been agreed upon earlier.

"So just one, is that right?" the taller of the two and current Hokage said, though it was redundant and mostly just to get a conversation started.

His companion, though someone far from ever being a friend, 'harumphed' in reply. "Iwa wouldn't be reckless enough to send an entire genin squad for you Leafs to 'look after'. I don't entirely see eye to eye with my advisers on this issue, at all, but there's no helping it when they've made up their minds."

Sarutobi looked away from the Tsuchikage in order to hide his slight smile. There was no pleasing this one, he thought. Of course, he too had his reservations about this innovative exchange programme. All too often, ninja villages were trying to one-up each other, even in times of peace and under the guise of treaties. Iwa in particular had an ominous tendency to double-cross Konoha. It had been a long while since the two had been on good terms.

Which might be why the councils were willing to try out this experiment; it could be the first step in preventing a greater divide between the villages.

Though Hiruzen had a strong suspicion that the Tsuchikage would use this opportunity to learn as much about the Hidden Leaf's fighting abilities and tactics as possible. Admittedly, some on his side would undoubtedly feel inclined to do just the same. He had suggested the exchange be for younger ninja for just the purpose of discouraging such offences, as well as the one year time frame.

All he had to do was find the most promising candidate who was at once a shining example of Konoha's stock and absolutely worthless in terms of clan techniques, special abilities, or any other outstanding skills that could compromise the inviolability of the village. Someone who was competent, but otherwise undistinguished.

o o o

Sakura listened as one by one, the names of those who had passed the final exam were called out. She figured there must have been some sort of mistake, because by now Iruka was reading through the 'Rs' in the crowd and he had well passed over the 'H' students without any second thought. And he had not said her name.

She could not believe it, and by some of the looks her classmates were throwing her, she was not alone in her utter lack of comprehension as to how she had not passed. It was a well known fact that she was an obnoxious overachiever when it came to written tests and at least passable in practical exercises. She was even dubbed to be the teacher's pet as Iruka had a habit of calling her name for an answer when no one else opted to give him one, and she was always right.

Iruka read out Uchiha Sasuke and Sakura automatically glanced at her crush, horrified that he was unmistakably aware of her failure and probably disgusted by it. The humiliation was suffocating and she quickly looked back at her sensei, about to demand he re-evaluate her, when he shocked her into silence.

"Congratulations, Naruto," Iruka said, handing out a Konoha hitai-ate to the boy who was arguably the most troublesome and unpromising student the academy had ever dealt with. There could not have been a more appropriate time for the floor beneath her to open wide and swallow her whole. Had her life really degenerated to the point where _Naruto_ was surpassing her?

Sakura could not hold in her dismayed whimper as Iruka started listing off the teams of three that the new graduates would form. Even Ino's groan of being paired with Shikamaru and Chouji instead of Sasuke was of no comfort.

Finally, only two genin were left without a cell and Iruka called them to the front of the class while dismissing everyone else. Sakura watched as Naruto and Sasuke made their way to their sensei's desk, wishing with all her heart that she could have been paired with them, even if she would have had to put up with Naruto's general abrasiveness. She sighed dejectedly, knowing it wasn't possible, and turned to leave.

"Oh, and Sakura, would you come up here as well?"

Sakura stopped short, not sure if she had imagined Iruka's voice out of sheer desperation. She looked over her shoulder to check, just to be sure. Her instructor was smiling gently and motioning for her to join him. Sasuke eyed her with mild interest (and her chest tightened at his acknowledgement) while Naruto grinned excitedly as she breathlessly turned back around.

"Yes, Sensei?" she said timidly as she approached, still wary of whether or not it was a good thing he had asked her down.

"I have some exciting news for you guys," Iruka said, peaking Sakura's curiosity and stoking the little spark of hope she still had. "The three of you have been chosen to take place in a new arrangement between Konoha and Iwa."

"The three of us?" Naruto barked, a bit obtusely, but he was considerate enough not to add the obvious, '_But Sakura-chan didn't even pass! No offence, Sakura-chan!'_

Though, honestly, she was wondering the same thing.

"Sakura passed," the seasoned chunin supplied happily, reading her thoughts, and Sakura felt wings sprout from her shoulders as she positively died with delirious relief. "Though she's not going to be joining Team 7 with you guys."

She promptly crashed back to the ground. "I don't understand, Iruka-sensei. If I passed, why am I not being put in a team?"

Iruka kept his upbeat expression. "Well, that's where the Konoha-Iwa arrangement comes into play. Sakura, instead of being paired with Sasuke and Naruto, you have been elected to train abroad in Iwa while a ninja from that village will come here in your place."

Sakura stared mutely at her teacher –her kind, wonderful sensei who she liked very much and who was currently screwing with her life plans! "Excuse me, Sensei," she said a bit tensely, "are you trying to say I was going to be partnered with Sasuke-kun -and Naruto- but because of this new treaty, I am being shipped off to a foreign country to work under 'enemies-until-five-days-ago' instead?"

"This is a great honour for the three of you. You have all been chosen as esteemed representatives of the village. There wasn't another ninja considered for the programme, Sakura. Certainly no other kunoichi," Iruka said warmly, oblivious to the minor conniption his female student was suffering.

As daunting as the whole endeavour sounded, Sakura immediately perked up at hearing this and the complete mortification from earlier, along with her flaring indignation, rapidly dissipated. "Not even Ino?" She challenged sceptically.

"Ino doesn't have the preferred qualifications for this position."

The wings returned and began to flutter tentatively. Again her gaze slid to her crush and she valiantly withheld a triumphant grin when she saw his normally impassive face regarding her with something that _must_ have been close to approval.

"Whoa! How cool, Sakura-chan! I always knew you were number one!" Naruto declared from beside her, and she couldn't help the satisfied little twist of her lips. The blonde was not so terrible all the time.

"How does this sound, Sakura?" Iruka asked, pride evident in his voice.

There was really only one response. "It sounds great."

And so, from there, Sakura had been ushered to the Hokage's office, where she and her parents listened to a more formal briefing about the exchange. They told her the departure time, suggested what she should bring, described how her living environment would be, explained acceptable manners, and gave her scrolls with all this information and more written down for her to look over again later. Her parents took every thing in with enthusiasm and didn't seem at all deterred that their daughter would be gone for a whole year.

It was starting to sink in for Sakura, though. She was alone now, only keeping company with the village elders and the Third as her parents had been shuffled off elsewhere to learn more about Iwa. Glancing around a bit nervously, she supposed it was the appropriated time that they would delve into the ninja aspect of her 'honourable' appointment.

A heavily bandaged man with a walking cane cleared his throat as he disengaged from a quiet conversation with the councillors, Koharu and Homura. While Sakura knew the other elders, as they were as well known and respected as the Third, this man she had never seen before. His obvious battle experience, judging from the amount of injuries and scars, made her nervous.

"You must understand the obligations you have as a Leaf nin going into this," the man said, not bothering to introduce himself. "While you are away, you will be the only Konoha operative remaining in the Hidden Stone Village. Contact will be limited through messenger birds."

"But I was just told–" Sakura started, but Sarutobi interrupted her.

"The information you are to relay directly to the Hokage Tower is only that which you deem pertinent to the well-being of our village," the Hokage clarified, sounding a bit tired.

"Anything suspicious," the bandaged man clarified. "In this scroll are several codes and algorithms you are to memorize and destroy before you leave. Use one of these for anything you have to write."

Sakura took a step forward to accept the scroll and was surprised when the man caught her wrist firmly. The Third grumbled at this, though didn't call out his fellow, and she was left to stare apprehensively at her superior.

"Use this time to help your village and to represent Konoha as a strong and accomplished member of our ranks. Think of this as your first official mission as a Leaf kunoichi. Keep vigilant."

His voice was sturdy, a touch aggressive, and one that commanded authority. She nodded. "Yes, Ojii-sama. Thank you."

Sakura reclaimed her wrist as soon as his grip was loose, snatching it back to her chest protectively. There was an overwhelming aura about the unnamed man that made her skin crawl.

"Don't hesitate if there is an emergency," Sarutobi considered her carefully. "We're expecting some of the same ploys from the Iwa-nin, so don't feel guilty using this peaceful delegation as a means to gather intelligence."

"Of course, Hokage-sama," she answered, bowing low. "I'll do my best."

The Third smiled, but Sakura thought she detected a flash of worry in his eyes as he did so.

o o o

The mild, subtropical climate of Fire Country was the only environment Sakura had ever known. In contrast, Stone's arid desert terrain was like entering a giant, red kiln. By the time her caravan had passed over the Iwa border, she was already succumbing to heat exhaustion. Just walking was a tedious task.

"This is going to do wonders for my hair," Sakura lamented, gently petting at her long locks.

"Sakura-chan shouldn't worry about her hair. If she's this tired already, then she needs to think about training more." The escort walking alongside her said this with an honest, cheerful expression. Unlike herself, his clothes were pristine looking and his shortly cut hair looked hardly tousled at all. Sakura wanted to punch him.

"A girl has got to look her best, you know," she said instead, sweetly mimicking his tone.

The man, who had introduced himself as Yamato, gave her an odd smile coupled with a raised eyebrow. "Is that so?" he asked vaguely, his interest quickly turning elsewhere.

Sakura returned her attention to the landscape as well, wishing terribly for better company. Of the people with whom she was travelling, Yamato alone had deigned to speak to her after the first few hours of the trip. Once all the questions having to do with her excitement/trepidation about the exchange had been used up, there had been very little else that anyone seemed to want to know about from her.

They could have at least asked her about her background. Shouldn't they be impressed that a first generation shinobi had been chosen to take this mission? Surely they were curious about her marks and qualifications, about her possibly secret weapons or jutsu.

But apparently not. The next thing she heard out of her four travelling companions was that they were about to meet up with the Iwa nin. Which meant that already her two weeks of hiking, climbing, sweating was coming ever nearer to the end.

"Well, this is the place," Yamato said, staring out across the landscape that Sakura could have sworn was pretty much the same place it had been for the past few days. It was in such tricky environments that ninja worked solely from coordinates, which was troublesome for her, as she had always been one to landmark.

"I only see the exact rock formations I've been staring at since we entered this country," Sakura remarked, blandly squinting into the distance. She wasn't immediately aware of the dirt at her feet moving.

"Figures this is the calibre of shinobi that the Leaf produces, eh," said the dirt, making Sakura startle. She jumped away, bumping into Yamato accidentally. The older nin was nonplussed by the fact that the _ground was talking_.

Only, it wasn't so much the ground as the man who formed out of it. A mouth appeared, eyes, a hand and an arm. He looked like a moving statue as he pulled himself upward, his body taking better shape and more humanly qualities as he did so.

Finally, there was a fully formed, fully flesh (and clothing) person standing before her. Another had sprouted up on the other side of the group.

In front of her, the man leaned forward, his bright hair matching his white, cocky smile. "Welcome to Stone, yeah, little kunoichi!"

Sakura could not keep the 'wtf!' expression off her face. "Good to be here," she said dryly.

"Just great, Shiro no Hitsuji. The White Sheep of Iwa," the young jounin just behind Yamato groused. "Couldn't the Tsuchikage have taken us just a bit more seriously?"

The man sputtered for a second, mirroring Sakura's own incredulous look. "You! It's not 'sheep', you dirty ferret! I'm Iwa's Shining Great White Ram! The Urial of the Red Desert, protector of the –"

"How's my little fleecy friend doing these days?" Sakura ducked slightly as the woman moved forward to take the Iwa nin into a headlock, tousling his hair.

"Stop comparing magnificent urials to your docile pets, yeah! Just because Fire Country isn't blessed enough to be home to anything other than livestock!" Profanities and curses on the woman's household followed.

"Yamato-san..."

"Don't worry, Sakura-chan. Those two go _way_ back."

"Really?"

"Yeah, Yuuji-kun was Kiyomi-kun's first assassin. She's had a soft spot for him ever since."

Kiyomi was the Leaf kunoichi currently suffocating the Iwa nin against the side of her chest. The redder his face got, the more she laughed.

Sakura worried that this exchange opportunity was going to end before she even got to the hidden village.

"Yeah! This guy was such a cutie when he failed to kill me, that I took him out for drinks afterwards just to cheer him up!" Kiyomi was pulling the man's shirt up over his head.

"Excuse me?" Sakura turned to look at the other Iwa nin that had spoken up. She looked to be in her young teens and, for some reason beyond her comprehension, was wearing a heavily layered outfit from head to toe. Her hair hair was covered to obscure most of her face, giving the impression of a very timid person. "Kiyomi-san, could you please release my sensei. His ego is very fragile."

"Mieko! Come on," said sensei protested, groaning sourly. Kiyomi laughed and opened her arms, giving Yuuji a hearty clap on the shoulder as he stumbled forward.

"Good to see you still have your upbeat attitude, Yuu-_chan_. I like your student..."

Sakura followed their conversation curiously. She didn't understand how these people acted so carefree around one another. For as long as she could remember, the Leaf and the Stone had always been enemies. How did Kiyomi treat someone who tried to kill her in such a friendly manner?

"Sometimes," Yamato said, noticing her puzzled gaze, "you can't help making friends. Despite what your military and government tell you."

The group started to continue moving, but Sakura still didn't understand Yamato's words. Shinobi were different from regular people; that's how she knew it to be. They carried out orders and did their duty no matter what. Friendships had nothing to do with it.

Not that Kiyomi or Yuuji would have agreed with that. As they walked the last part of the trip (which was by far the hottest), the "old pals" acted easily in each other's presence. The Leaf kunoichi continued to torture the 'Great White Ram' of Iwa, but it was obvious in his theatrical responses that he was actually quite fond of the attention.

Weird.

Sakura resolved to stay as professional as possible during her time in Iwa. As soon as they had been transported inside the village (by way of a seal –it was too risky to lead the outsiders there directly), she adopted a cool façade and hardened her nerves.

If only Sasuke could see her now –surely he would have been amazed at her beautiful, dignified appearance.

Someone splashed water in her face.

"Welcome to Iwagakure," another brightly coloured guard greeted, the cup still outstretched towards Sakura's face. "You looked a bit hot, yeah. Though, you should be more careful, that could have been acid! Such a shame, these Konoha nin don't know how to train their ranks."

"I like this guy, too," Kiyomi chirped, having not had anything spilled onto her.

"Ah, thank you," Sakura managed to say, all the while internally berating herself to stay collected. Iwa nin were completely insane, she decided, but she wouldn't let them get to her.

Yuuji appeared at Sakura's side. "So, Sakura-chan, before we can allow you to meet the Tsuchikage, you understand that you will need you to pass through clearance." It wasn't so much a question, but she slid her eyes to Yamato nervously, wanting to explain that, no, she didn't understand.

"You'll understand if we don't comply with the clearance check," Yamato replied easily.

"Not you certainly, just the girl. For precaution, of course."

Sakura started to shake her head, as a polite way to decline, but her escort answered for her. "As long as Kiyomi-kun can attend, then that seems appropriate."

That feeling of wanting to hit the amiable man returned.

A clearance check, as Sakura discovered, was nothing of the 'appropriate' sort. Her entire body had been prodded, stretched, and scrutinised in every fashion possible. _Every fashion_. If she hadn't known better, she would have sworn she was being screened before entering prison.

But in the end, thankfully, the Iwa shinobi and medics declared her to be perfectly healthy and completely harmless. Which actually didn't seem such a positive evaluation result considering her chosen profession. Oh yes, how the Bingo Book would love to have her listed in its pages: _Haruno Sakura, Konohagakure's Completely Harmless Kunoichi!_

"That seemed like fun, kid," Kiyomi joked as they exited the jounin headquarters to walk to the Tsuchikage's tower. "Too bad we can't stay for your introductions!"

Sakura would be entering the building by herself, after her team picked up her exchange partner, and meeting her sensei with the Tsuchikage.

"Hey, Yamato-taichou! That the pebble?" Sakura tried not to roll her eyes at her superior's tactlessness as they reunited with the escort. A few more Iwa nin had joined them while she had been busy with her "inspection".

One was a finely dressed woman who immediately caught Sakura's attention, both for her looks, and her charming voice. "Haruno-san? Nice to meet you. I'm Otsuka Tomiko, Iwa's diplomatic liaison for Konohagakure."

She bowed and Sakura did so in return. "Pleased to meet you, Otsuka-san."

Tomiko smiled and then motioned to the boy standing beside her, the one labelled 'Pebble' by Kiyomi. "This is Teru-kun. He'll be training in Konoha while you're here."

It was difficult for Sakura to greet Teru with a straight face; the boy had a mane. His features were otherwise normal, dark red hair, a symmetrical face, light eyes... But around his neck was a thick, fluffy collar of what looked like fur. She could see the roots from where they started at the bottom of his neck. Perhaps it was the result of his clan having some sort of animal affiliation?

"P-pleased to meet you, Teru," she greeted. _How could he possibly survive in this heat, _she thought.

"Yo," was his curt response.

"From here you'll be directed up to Tsuchikage-sama's office. Your sensei has decide to go ahead and wait for you there, as a more formal meeting."

A few more words and explanations were given, which Sakura studiously memorized, but all too soon her escort was preparing to leave and her situation suddenly started to weigh down on her. She was in a foreign ninja village and about to say goodbye to her only allies that she would see for the next year.

Despite having wanted to punch the man previously, Sakura was now sorely tempted to hug Yamato as he good-naturedly pet her head. His warm smile was somehow less annoying as he said goodbye, wishing her luck.

"Thank you, Yamato-taichou," she said evenly, concentrating on not letting her voice tremble. "Good bye."

With little fuss or circumstance, as shinobi were prone to do, the Leaf nin left; Yuuji and his pupil again transporting them out.

Sakura was very much alone when the cloud from the jutsu had cleared.

Except for Tomiko, who cleared her throat demurely to catch Sakura's attention. "I'll escort you up now, if you'd like. Your sensei will be the one to show you your housing."

Sakura didn't have much of a choice, so she followed the woman, chatting idly as they walked. Unlike Konoha, which was architecturally and stylistically busy, Iwagakure didn't have much to offer in such areas. There were remnants of what looked like masterful stone carvings, but years of neglect and environmental abuse had dulled any beauty that may have been.

Which was why she couldn't help her mouth from falling open when they entered the Kage's building. Sakura had never seen so many luxurious materials in one place before. The entire entryway was carved out of marble, the ceiling was an extensive, shining painting, the candelabras were gold, the carpets were antiques. Every surface was something remarkable.

Sakura didn't know how a military operation could ever function in such an environment. Even the staircase banister was finished with gold leaf. "This is unreal," she murmured.

Tomiko just smiled.

After several flights of stairs, of which Sakura quickly grew bored, they came to the top floor. It was off white and very pristine, with rows of paintings lining the walls, and crystal chandeliers segmented the single hallway. There was a set of ornately designed doors at the end.

"Your sensei will greet you in there," Tomiko said, rather unnecessarily gesturing to the doors. "Ill see you around, Haruno-san. Please contact me any time if something concerns you. Take care."

"Thank you for taking care of me, Otsuka-san."

Then Sakura was really alone. Well, if she discounted the surveillance cameras she was certain were now recording her every move from a dozen angles. She gazed down the corridor, truly worried for the first time about her lack of back up.

But she couldn't let the shinobi watching her see her hesitation, so she ordered her feet to move forward. The doors were heavy when she tried to open them, and she felt a bit clumsy when she tugged on them rather forcefully and ended up making a nice amount of commotion.

On their other side, she realised sheepishly, was a small waiting room and another entrance to the actual office of the Tsuchikage. There was a guard stationed to its side and he gave her a questioning look at her unsubtle arrival.

"Ah, um, pardon me," she stammered, blushing slightly and feeling a little insecure.

The guard, who was quite young, smirked at her. "Oh, don't be embarrassed. You _are_ a Leaf shinobi."

The delicate pretence she had been attempting to recapture quickly deflated as she gave the guard a challenging look. _No, no! Don't let him rile you. Remember: dignity and beauty_. She cleared her throat, trying to match Tomiko's reserved manner. She ignored his comment and stated her business. "I have an appointment with the Tsuchikage."

"No you don't."

A muscle twitched above Sakura's brow. This man was seriously trying to piss her off. "I was told I would be meeting my sensei here."

"Mm-hmm," the man –no, _boy_, answered noncommittally.

"Well, could you alert your Kage that I'm here?"

"Nope."

Another muscle twitch, well on its way to becoming a spasm. "Fine then. Should I just wait here for my sensei?"

"Oh, sure," he said pleasantly, adopting a smiling veneer. It was completely fake, but Sakura took a seat on one of the couches nonetheless.

She shrugged off her pack, glad to be rid of it, and rubbed gingerly at her relieved shoulders.

"Must have been a tough trip," the guard said, lips twisted just oddly enough to be somewhat off putting compared to a normal smile.

It immediately put her on the defensive. "Not really," she proclaimed, stilling her massage (to the protest of her sore body), to stare at the boy challengingly. It was while she was considering him so closely that she realised he was actually quite familiar; it occurred to her that she'd seen this same person earlier, when she had first arrived.

She gasped, instantly scandalised. With some effort, she managed to keep calm enough to ask the guard for his name.

"It's Deidara, yeah," he supplied easily, full smirk re-emerging.

"You threw water on me," she declared, sitting forward to point at him dramatically. Sakura would commit his name to memory in order to find him later and take out revenge.

Deidara shrugged his shoulders, entirely without remorse. "You looked like you needed some watering, Sprout," he offered, as if that were reason enough.

Sakura snorted and turned away from him to frown out the window. The sun was already starting to set and she wondered how much longer she would have to wait for her new team leader to appear. Distractedly, she decided to search through her scrolls for a book to read.

"Whatcha doin, yeah?" Deidara asked, affecting his voice to be more childlike, intending to bother her. Sakura continued going through her things, trying to keep everything in order while she located her stored literature.

"I'm going to find something to read so that I can better ignore you," she replied dismissively.

Deidara perked up at her answer. "Oh, so you're the scholarly type then. A bookworm or something?"

She sniffed, pretending to be very distracted by the bag she was looking through. "I was top of my class in school, so yes, I am quite accomplished in that area."

"I guess that's something to work with, yeah," he remarked. "You're not so terrible, Sprout."

The scroll in her hand crinkled a bit as her grip tightened. Sakura frowned at the boy across the room. "It's Sakura. Haruno Sakura. You can call me Haruno-san."

He laughed outright. "Sure, call me "Deidara-sama, yeah."

"I won't be calling you anything, _yeah_, because from this point on, I'll be ignoring you." She swivelled as much as she could in her seat to face away from the blond-haired pest. Determinedly, she found a book to read (Clash of Clans, Identity Politics and the Making of Konohagakure) and set about not paying attention to the man –_boy–_ standing guard a few paces from her.

Except he was awfully terrible at being innocuous. Deidara was constantly fidgeting, and tapping his fingers, spinning a kunai, or sighing dejectedly. After the fourth such lonesome exhalation, Sakura clapped her book shut and _kindly_ inquired as to just what the heck his problem was.

Deidara blinked at her, as if surprised to find Sakura was still in the room. He looked away to forlornly gaze out the window. "Oh nothing," he said, his sad composure completely exaggerated. She rolled her eyes, decidedly not intrigued.

"I'm just disappointed," he continued, as soon as Sakura had resumed reading. "I could be outside right now, enjoying life, yeah, and instead I'm cooped up here. With you."

The throbbing above her temple returned. "Sorry for being such dreadful company," she mumbled, laying her sarcasm nice and thick.

"I'm sure this won't be the worst of it," Deidara said, though she didn't quite understand his meaning. The pause stretched into a length of silence, each of them trying not to think of the other, but both hyper aware of their company anyway.

After what seemed like hours (and what had been about half an hour in reality), the office door to Deidara's side opened.

A short, barrel-chested man slammed out, his mouth bobbing from under his reddened nose and white moustache. It was the Tsuchikage, talking with someone who looked like an advisor, being trailed by several ANBU. His hands were animated as he talked, pointing from person to person. "And make sure that border is as tight as this runt's girl's legs are loose!"

"_Tsuchikage-sama..._" the apparent runt whined from behind a porcelain mask.

Sakura had abandoned her reading to stare blankly at the sudden entrance. Belatedly, she closed her mouth. "Ah...Tsuchikage-dono?"

Everyone's attention honed in on her formerly insignificant presence. The Tsuchikage raised an eyebrow at her, his lips down-turned. "Are you the Leaf kunoichi?" he asked, sounding bewildered. The people following him all stared openly at her, just as baffled.

Sakura suddenly felt foolish, though she couldn't say why. She had followed orders and waited here –and now the old man was surprised to see her?

"Um, yes sir. I was informed that I would be introduced to my sensei here..." she said honestly, but trailed off as Deidara disguised a laugh with a very unconvincing cough. The old man startled and turned his head to glare at the boy. He then looked at Sakura as if he couldn't exactly figure her out. "Eh? Meet your sensei? He's been right here the entire time!"

The room was still empty if not counting the newly entered entourage and Tsuchikage. Sakura glanced around, wondering if her sensei was hidden somewhere, as Yuuji had done in the desert. And then, while Sakura was considering the possibility of a person popping up out of the floor again (or perhaps her seat cushion), it dawned on her. Sakura snapped her head around to glare accusingly at her blond antagonist. "You!" she demanded of Deidara.

He gave her another cheeky grin and then a mock salute. "Deidara-sensei, at your service, Sprout."

O O O

**Author's Note:** Hurr hurr x) But I bet you all saw that one coming a mile off.

Anyhow...any important developments that happen in the manga plot will also happen in Expedient. So yay for all the goodies to come :D


	2. Go Go Go

**Title:** Expedient

**Summary:** In order to cement a truce between the two villages, Konoha and Iwa exchange recently graduated academy students. Fortunately, if anything were to go wrong, Haruno Sakura was just average enough to risk losing. AU.

**Disclaimer:** Unfortunately, I do not own Naruto or any of its affiliations…I am merely borrowing its characters and settings to indulge my own fantasies and then share said fantasies with other people who equally do not own Naruto. I am not making any profit off this.

**Author's note:** Stuff that needs to be said...

**Chapter Two:** Go Go Go

O O O

_Stranded on the ocean, drowning there at best, so I came unto your desert_

O O O

With the order to "take the little seedling and plant her elsewhere", Sakura and her new sensei had been promptly booted out of the Kage Tower after their rather short introduction.

"So, I guess you'll want something to eat and then to go to sleep," Deidara said, rubbing absently at the back of his neck.

Sakura, standing a few steps behind him outside the building, tossed her book at the back of his head (she took delight in aiming for the half ponytail he'd gathered there). "Don't just say that so casually! All we got to was, 'Deidara-sensei, at your service, Sprout,' and then we were kicked outside!"

The blond looked over his shoulder with an unimpressed look. "We'll have to work on your basic strength first, I guess."

"So you're not a guard, then? How old are you? Does the Tsuchikage even like you? Are you a jounin? How old are you, again?"

With each question, Deidara's expression soured further. "Stop asking me things so quickly!"

She closed her mouth, as she'd opened it for another rapid-fire round, and gave him an expectant look.

Deidara sighed and drew a hand down his face as if he was suffering terribly. "No. Fifteen. Of course, who doesn't? Yes, definitely. And again, I'm fifteen, yeah."

Sakura hopped down the last few steps to catch up to Deidara, and thus discovered, to her worsening dismay, that her teacher was only a few inches taller than her. "You are...about three years older than me, then. When were you promoted? Have you taught any students before? Do I have team mates?"

The hand previously pulling at Deidara's eyes was suddenly pressed over Sakura's lips, preventing her from speaking. "Ok, I get that you're curious, yeah. But can't you at least spread these questions throughout the night?"

Supposing that she was being a bit demanding to someone who was meant to be in some sort of superior position, Sakura nodded her head. The hand was quickly withdrawn.

"Right. We've got a bit of a walk, yeah, so I'll just talk as we go."

"How far?" The question was purely reflexive, but she smiled apologetically at Deidara's exhausted grimace any ways. "Sorry, habit. Whenever you're ready, then."

Not quite sure if he was willing to trust her yet, Deidara gave her one last wary appraisal. Finally he took off down one of the many streets that lead to and from the tower.

He slipped into guide-mode seamlessly. "Where to start? That ramen stand there looks good, but really it's crap. The best place for underground Shougi is down that alley, third stoop, Fuji's place. Hmm, don't buy anything from this corner shop, the guy's a crook. The weapons here are all second hand, so you have to be careful when buying something. I like the dango at Satou's, down that street –she has her own recipe for this really good sauce."

Sakura followed where Deidara pointed, trying to decide whether any of the information he was giving her was actually useful. Everything he pointed out seemed somewhat irrelevant, and a lot of it had to do with food. She sighed when he mentioned the third "crap" ramen shop.

Her sensei caught the noise, though she hadn't really meant to be ostentatious. "Alright, alright. So tell me bookworm, how much do _you _know about Iwa?"

"Nothing about restaurants, but I have learned a fair amount from the books I've read."

"The ones your Leaf superiors assigned?" he teased, doubting her objectivity.

Sakura's lips pulled up in a smug manner. "No, from the ones I've independently decided to read, thank you very much. I don't just think what people tell me to."

If there was one thing Sakura liked, it was dashing preconceptions others had about her intelligence and knowledge.

Since Deidara was foreign, and from a previously hostile country no less, she wasn't surprised by his scepticism, but she was _so_ going to enjoy beating it down. As they walked, she listed the clan names that had formed Iwagakure in its infancy, the name of the first Earth Daimyo, the contracts and treaties the two bodies had agreed upon, the social and economical situations that stipulated those agreements.

And she had plenty more to share except her sensei covered his ears and moaned at her to stop. "Ok, ok, I don't care! Kami, I get it, yeah! You know some stuff. So pretentious."

"Not pretentious. You asked and I just happened to be informed." ...Ok, so she had been showing off a little. Sakura smiled at his slight pout as he kicked at a loose rock.

"I didn't even know copies of Tetsuhaza's texts existed outside of Earth Country..." he remarked, going back to pieces she had referenced while talking.

Sakura thought of her parents and was proud of them and their work. "It's pretty rare, I guess."

There was a pause and they both walked silently. Then, "you're a weird kid, Haruno."

"Yeah, I've been told..."

After that, they went back to Deidara pointing out things about his home town and giving advice on food, and Sakura discovered, to her dismay, that Iwagakure was a very uneven city. Geographically, in this case. There were a lot of dips and climbs, unlike Konoha, which was mostly flat.

"So anyhow, yeah, I live past the city limits. Privacy, you know?" Deidara announced, interrupting his own narration. "We're getting sort of close now."

Sakura didn't quite follow him, because out of nowhere the stucco blocks and narrow streets had given way to a steep cliff drop off into a forest. It had been building crammed against building for the past hour of walking, then down one alley -BAM- forest. Sakura looked to her left and right, seeing that the tree line extended a great distance in each direction.

Then she realised what she was looking at. "This is...this is the First Hokage's Mokuton jutsu. The gift he offered Iwagakure at its founding. This takes up the city's entire northern front!"

Deidara smirked, looking out into the dense trees, the canopy at their eye level. "The very same, yeah. And those mountains," he nodded to the peaks in the distance, "are where we're heading."

"You live all the way out there?" Sakura repeated, groaning internally for the sake of her sore calf muscles.

The blond grinned down at her. "I practice some...hazardous jutsu, so I need the distance from vital locations, yeah. Besides, this way we'll be able to train there without too many people hassling us."

At that moment Sakura knew why Deidara was her sensei; the Tsuchikage had placed her with him with the sole intention of keeping her as far away from Iwagakure's shinobi operations as possible. Tricky man, she thought. How very ninja-like of him. "So I guess this means I don't have any team mates?"

"Nope. Lucky, right? Exciting, yeah?" Deidara goaded.

Sakura pretended not to hear her sensei, whistling unconvincingly as she looked anywhere but at him.

"Ehn, fine, fine. Be that way," he dismissed her, tagging something suspiciously like '_leaf brat'_ under his breath, but still loud enough for her to hear.

Secretly, she smiled, liking that he understood when she was teasing him and that he was easy going enough to play along.

He perked up. "Last one to the house makes dinner, yeah!"

Sakura gave him an exasperated look, about to explain how unfair that was considering his familiarity with the area –only to find that he was gone.

"Sakura-chan's going to _loo-oose_!" Deidara called back from where he was already hopping down over the side of the rock face.

"Cheater!" she yelled, quickly starting off after him.

"Nope! _Ninja_!" the blond corrected her, making Sakura laugh.

Descending a cliff was tricky, even for an academy graduate. After a couple of minutes, Sakura heard Deidara's voice from the forest floor below. "Come on, Sprout! Tell me you're faster than that, yeah!"

Sakura groaned as she dropped onto a little ledge and saw that she'd only made about twenty feet of progress, with three-quarters left to go. There was a _poof_ of smoke at her side as Deidara teleported himself back onto the ledge with a shunshin jutsu.

"First lesson, Sakura-chan," he said, bringing his hands in front of his chest to make a Ram hand seal. "If you concentrate chakra to your feet, you can use it as a means of sticking onto surfaces against the pull of gravity. See?"

He demonstrated this by walking up the rocks until his head was perpendicular to her own.

"Your turn. Don't worry, I'll wait 'til you've got it, yeah. I understand that you're a Leaf and that this could take a while."

Sakura rolled her eyes at the jab, but then closed them nonetheless, trying to envision her chakra pathways. The image was clear in her mind, and she felt the energy circulating her body in kind. _Ok, just...go to my feet, Chakra_.

There was a satisfying, silent hum along the bottom of each foot almost immediately. Sakura withheld a gasp at the feeling of her stance becoming almost suction-like on the stone.

A thought came to mind as soon as she assured herself she had perfect control of the technique; she plastered an excited smile onto her face. "I think I have it Deidara-sensei! Look!"

Sakura stepped over to the edge – making as if to walk over it, when she lost her hold and started to fall. She shrieked, twisting in mid air to stare, shocked for a split second at Deidara's paling face before he was out of sight.

Careful to keep her toes attached to the rock's surface, she allowed her body to fall, continuing the motion into a backwards handstand until her hands had cemented onto the underside of the ledge and her legs had fallen under her again.

"Shit! Sakura–"

She had just barely managed to sneak her entire body under the ledge when Sakura saw Deidara's blurry form stream by. "Made you jump!" she yelled after him, giggling.

Deidara had the grace to twist around to look at her as he fell, panic replaced by his middle finger and the words "Fuckin' Leaf" floating up to her.

With the skill of a high-level ninja, he summoned a rock arm out of the cliff with a douton jutsu and landed on it quite nimbly.

Confident with her new ability, Sakura caught up to him easily, running and jumping as she descended. "First lesson!" she mimicked as she cartwheeled into a stop at his side, "Never doubt a Leaf Kunoichi!"

For a few seconds, all her sensei did was pout, making her feel a bit guilty about the prank.

"Hey, Sakura-chan!" Deidara said, though the person in front of her didn't move. "You can sit there all night talking to that dummy if you'd like, yeah, but a _real_ kunoichi would be following me!"

Sakura whipped her head around to see a waving Deidara standing in the woods. She'd never seen him use a technique to sneak off. "Catch me if you can!" he laughed before turning and jumping to another tree. His form bounced between the ground, roots, and trunks as he steadily moved away.

"Th-that's not fair!"

It was dark by the time their game of chase had ended, and Sakura was barely able to stand when she came to a stop just a few paces behind her still completely energized teacher. He had teased her the entire journey, always lingering just out of reach and egging her on with insults.

"Hey there, Sprout. Grow any roots while I left you in the dust?"

Sakura had the dignity to stick her tongue out at him between gasps of air.

He ignored it, instead focusing on something ahead of them. They had slowly but surely been increasing in elevation again as they had gone through the forest, and finally come to the base of a mountain. Several hundred feet above their heads, she could see lights glowing and the shadow of a large building constructed into the rocks.

"That looks like a temple," Sakura said, squinting to see better.

Deidara smirked at her, clearly proud. "Not exactly, yeah. It's my studio. Slash home."

"That's wonderful, but why does it have to be so far away..." she was at the point where her body was overtaxed and cooling rapidly with the sudden lack of motion. Against her will, her muscles were starting to shake.

With the aid of evening shadows, Sakura didn't see her sensei's smile falter before he schooled his expression. "Ha! Looks like we have a lot of work to do, yeah. _Shinobi_. They must hand those hitai-ate out like candy in your village."

Sakura rubbed at the metal plate holding back her hair. "That's not true..."

Deidara watched her quietly for a moment, an odd look overtaking his visage. He pat her shoulder then, in something of a reassuring fashion. "I know, Sprout," he said, almost gently. Sakura blamed the resulting flush of her cheeks on the recent run.

Her sensei saw this and quickly snatched his arm back to his side, pivoting awkwardly to start walking up steps carved into the ground. He talked while he walked away, mechanically motioning for her to follow. "Still have to get you something to eat, yeah."

She felt the corners of her mouth pull upwards as she followed after him.

From the base of the mountain, the structure had looked imposing. Up close it was simply amazing.

The style was unlike anything she had seen in Konoha, constructed out of slabs of stone, some of the blocks nearly as tall as she. It was huge and labyrinthine in the way it seemed to coil around the slope and crags. Every few yards along the top of the wall, there were steadily burning torches and little banners waving in the breeze.

"It's like a castle," she murmured, impressed. "Do Iwa knights live here or something? Samurai?"

Deidara laughed. "We're not in Iron Country, yeah. This used to be a fort though, sure. Back before the ninja clans had settled here. 'Course you must have read about that?" he winked.

Sakura frowned at his little spur. "You mentioned something about dinner?" she asked, purposefully redirecting the conversation.

A meal, as she had guessed, was a topic Deidara was all to happy to pursue. He went on about proper nutrition and how it correlated to muscle development and brain functions. Sakura was half listening to her sensei and otherwise caught up in looking around at her new "home". After leading her inside the fort, through a wrought iron gate and then a second wooden set of doors, Deidara cut across the interior courtyard to another building.

Sakura followed him, carefully picking her way between flowers bushes, potholes, and statues. "Quite an interesting place," she commented when at her sensei's side again.

He grinned. "That's nothing, yeah. Bet there's nothing in your town like this."

Her shoulders rose as she shrugged non-committally. "The Hyuuga compound, I guess. Maybe Sasuke's place. That part of the city is pretty traditional and grand. It's pretty big."

Deidara's eyebrow's had wriggled at Sasuke's name, however, and Sakura got the impression he'd stop listening to what she was saying. "Eh? A boy, yeah? Is this Sakura-_chan's_ boyfriend?"

A blush lit across her cheeks but she fought to retain an unimpressed gaze. "Don't be annoying!" Sakura chided.

"Don't be so obvious," the blond responded, the playful tone reappearing. "I bet it must be hard, travelling all the way to Iwa without your boy."

They had entered another building, this one sporting a more oriental architecture and design. It was old-fashioned, with wooden floors and screened walls. "Your home is schizophrenic," Sakura observed, poking her head into what looked like a training room.

"Ah-ha," Deidara rubbed at his neck. "I had to do some remodelling, yeah, so I just rebuilt it to my taste."

Admittedly, it was sort of pleasing to the eye.

"Why did you come to Iwa, eh, Haruno?" Her sensei asked her as he redirected Sakura to a kitchen.

Her bag fell from her shoulders onto a chair as she rolled her stiff muscles. "Because it seemed interesting."

A sly smile spread across Deidara's face. His guess was vexingly precise. "Wanted to impress someone, yeah?"

When she refused to answer, he laughed again. Despite wanting to be obstinate, she found it somehow contagious.

o o o

After he had treated her to steamed meat, vegetables and some sort of spicy sauce served over rice, Deidara showed her more of the complex, and finally, to her room.

It was rectangular and simply accommodated; it had a set of drawers, a changing screen, a futon, some ornamentation, and oil lamps.

"This is perfect," Sakura breathed, almost delirious with the promise of sleep. Deidara had wondered down the hall for the moment, and she took the time to slip her shoes off and poke at her blisters. She was nearly purring with the sudden lack of confinement.

A cough from the doorway alerted her to Deidara's return. She startled, about to tell him off for spying, when he tossed a towel at her face.

"Wash room's to the right. The bath water is hot." He was apparently amused at her less than elegant state.

Appropriately, she stuck her tongue out at him, pulling at her eye for good measure.

"Nice look, yeah," Deidara waved her off, leaving her alone again.

But a soak did sound impossibly nice...

Much later, Sakura fell onto her futon, grateful for its feathery goodness, and inhaled deeply. It smelled surprisingly fresh and she had a mental image of Deidara airing it out the day before, cleaning the dust off with a broom as his hair flopped from side to side with his movements.

A laugh escaped her at the vivid picture.

"What is it, yeah?" Deidara asked, making her jump.

Her futon was positioned near the wall, which was contructed out of a shouji screen, and she was immediately concerned if it was actually some sort of door. On the other side of which, Deidara was literally a few feet away, judging by his silhouette. If they both reached out, their fingers would meet with little trouble.

"Ah, nothing," she said quickly, burying herself in her covers. For a few minutes, she stared idly at the moving shadow in front of her as Deidara crossed the room back and forth. It took a couples of seconds for her to realise he had started undressing at some point. She cursed inaudibly and ducked her head under the blanket embarrassedly. _Stupid backlight._

When it had become distinctly uncomfortable to breath the hot air under her futon, she re-emerged with a stifled huff. A hasty sideways glance proved that her sensei had finally settled down for the night, a book of some sort propped open on his chest.

"Still awake?" Sakura asked, playing dumb about being able to see him. Deidara "hmm"ed in what she guessed what a confirmation.

They'd skipped talk during dinner, but suddenly Sakura found that she was impossibly curious about her new teacher. "When were you promoted?"

The silhouette sighed and placed the book aside. "Back to the questions, yeah... to jounin, then?"

She shrugged, though he couldn't see it. "Sure, I guess. All of it, maybe? When did you leave the academy?"

"I never went. I started developing my own douton jutsu by the time I was seven, yeah. When the Tsuchikage found that out, he placed me with a private tutor until I was a chunnin. Probably took about a year..."

Sakura was sure her jaw would be hanging open if gravity had been in its favour. As it was, lying on her side, she was still amazed – if not so obviously. "Seven? Why were doing that sort of thing at _seven_? Did your parents teach you?"

There was an undignified snort. "I told you I developed them myself, yeah? I never knew my parents, any way. But I like art, always have. I used chakra because it helped me mould clay faster, that's all. And I guess it helped it fights too, yeah."

He snickered, gleefully reminiscing, before continuing. "So now most of my work has to do with sabotage and shi– stuff."

When friends with someone like Ino and fond of someone like Sasuke, Sakura had always found her non-existent ninja background to be a huge disadvantage. But hearing about Deidara was possibly the most frustrating thing ever. In that moment, she was incredibly frustrated with her own lack of ambition and resourcefulness.

Her sensei was perceptive of her sharp dive in mood. "Alright there, Sprout?"

"I'm fine," she said quickly, peeking again at her sensei's shadow. In a way, Deidara reminded her of Naruto. She had never considered such an obnoxious attitude to be enviable, but it was easy to tell that the jounin on the other side of the divide was a person who had prospered in the wake of adversity. Without proper training, he had learned combat skills from necessity, and was now clearly successful for it.

Sakura had chosen the scholarly route of improving herself because she had never felt pressured to be a fighter. She had become a shinobi because...

"What about you, yeah?" Deidara's vaguely interested voice cut through her train of thought.

"What do you mean by that?"

There was a hum from behind the screen. "You know, what are you parents like and all. Why you became a kunoichi... that kind of stuff, yeah."

Sakura hesitated a bit. Saying that she'd entered the ninja academy to follow after her crush seemed almost ridiculous in comparison to Deidara's story. "To serve my village," she offered instead.

There was another bark of laughter. "There it is! There's the textbook answer your teachers fed you, yeah!"

_Ah, damn_. There goes sounding objective and independent. "Ok, ok" thinking quickly, she drew from her past. "I used to be teased a lot when I was younger. I guess...I wanted to go to the academy in order to get stronger..." She winced, she sounded like _such a boy_.

There was a long moment before a reply came. "That's not so bad a reason. ...But I don't want to know what you were like before if this is the "stronger you", yeah."

He laughed at his own joke and Sakura rolled her eyes; she probably should have expected that.

"So, what were you teased about? Your funny hair? Your poor choice in wardrobe?"

"Hardly! My hair's exotic, thank you very much. And my clothes are cute," unconsciously, she copied Deidara's pout. It was difficult to admit normally, but Sakura found herself speaking openly with the shadow on her wall. "I was made fun of for my forehead. ...It's too wide."

She closed her eyes, waiting for her teacher's inevitable jibe.

"That's it? Seriously? Kids teased you for your forehead? And you believed them?"

The rooms were quiet again. Sakura was taken aback; she had never considered not believing those who had teased her. Not until Ino had told her otherwise. Even then she had still just accepted the truth that she had a particularly displeasing brow. "I...of course I did! It was really terrible!"

"I thought you said you '_don't allow people to tell you what to think_'?" Deidara asked, and she could hear the frown in his voice. He was referring back to when they had talked in the village and Sakura had made clear that she formed her own opinions.

"Well, yeah, I know – but that's hard to do when _everyone_ around you is telling you something over and over again."

Deidara scoffed. "Doesn't make it true. Your forehead may not be perfectly proportioned, but it works well with your face. It's not like you're terribly asymmetrical or something. Your look is just different, and those other kids were probably jealous."

For some unnamed reason, Sakura felt her chest swell and her toes curl, kind of like she was giddy. She turned her head a little to look at the screen separating them and the feeling increased. This was the first time anyone other than her best friend turned love rival had ever complimented her. "Do you really think that?"

There was the tiniest hesitation before he answered, and immediately Sakura worried that he was rethinking what he had just told her. "I guess you're alright, yeah. I'm saying this strictly as an artist."

"So do you think Sasuke likes me?" she pushed, knowing that a boy's was a very trustworthy opinion.

"What? That mansion kid again?" Deidara asked, seemingly dismayed the conversation had jumped back to her classmate. He coughed. "I don't know...how's he acted around you?"

And then she heard something like skin clapping skin, not knowing that on the other side of the divide, Deidara had just frustratedly slapped a hand against his forehead.

"He's never really said much of anything to me," Sakura confessed, feeling gloomier upon that realisation.

There was a very no-nonsense edge to Deidara's voice in his answer. "Look, Sakura, what he thinks doesn't even matter. You're just who you are, yeah. Can't do anything about that. Be happy that you're actually smart and you know, symmetrical looking and all that. You've got stuff going for you, yeah."

Sakura liked Sasuke, quite a bit really, but hearing someone stick up for her was kind of nice.

"Any way," Deidara offered, "that dude sounds like a total dick."

The happy feeling deflated. It was one thing to respond to a compliment, but another to respond to insulting someone else. Besides, Sakura knew that Sasuke had plenty of reasons for acting cold. "That's not fair. You don't even know him," she said, suddenly much quieter.

"I know he probably has some great brooding, tragic past – a dead puppy or whatever – but that doesn't mean he has to be so obviously arrogant. The guy sounds like a self-centred prick."

All of this based on the fact Sasuke had a big house and that he wasn't exactly talkative to Sakura.

"You don't understand! Sasuke was –"

Deidara yawned again, not allowing her to finish. "New rule. No more talking about crushes, yeah."

Sakura huffed loudly and rolled over in her mattress. She wanted to explain to him about the Uchiha, tell him that Sasuke was cold because he had been hurt – that was all. He was a lonely kid, eager to prove his worth.

But perhaps Deidara wouldn't get that anyway; when he'd been alone and insecure, Deidara had become extroverted as opposed to introverted. He probably couldn't relate to how Sasuke had decided to deal with his life.

"Now goodnight, Sprout," Deidara said, not slightly aware of her thoughts. He sounded so strong and confident to Sakura even then. "Get some rest, you'll need it, yeah."

Her brows drew together. Just when Sakura began to like her new sensei, he went and spoiled things. She had no idea what to make of the man – _boy_. Except that he was certainly one to offer a fresh view of things. Did she like that about him or not?

She turned over in her futon once more, trying to quiet her musings. "Goodnight."

O O O

**Author's Note:** Most of the time, I'm arrogant enough to think I'm doing Sakura's character a favour xP

Yay - reviews! Each and every one brightens up my sad, lonesome days~~ :D


	3. No Other Place

**Title:** Expedient

**Summary:** In order to cement a truce between the two villages, Konoha and Iwa exchange recently graduated academy students. Fortunately, if anything were to go wrong, Haruno Sakura was just average enough to risk losing. AU.

**Disclaimer:** Unfortunately, I do not own Naruto or any of its affiliations…I am merely borrowing its characters and settings to indulge my own fantasies and then share said fantasies with other people who equally do not own Naruto. I am not making any profit off this.

**Author's Note: ** These two are especially fun to write...

**Chapter Three:** No Other Place

O O O

_Cause when I look at you, you look right back at me_

O O O

Deidara let Sakura sleep in the next morning, waking her up at zero six hundred hours as opposed to zero five hundred.

His method was quite effective: a douse of cold water poured over her head. Sakura bolted up right, her heart beating into her throat and her muscles protesting terribly in confused spasms. "Wha-what's going on?"

Her dizzily frantic eyes landed on her sensei. He had a sly smile gracing his face even while holding the damned evidence of a bucket in his hands -which he promptly tossed at her.

"Who does this any more?" she grouched while reflexively catching the pail.

"No time for complaints, Haruno. Wash up, get dressed, and put your futon out on the line to dry."

"Right, right," Sakura grumbled while moving to discreetly rifle through her new drawers for an outfit.

"Wear something that's loose fitting, yeah. It'll keep you cooler," Deidara advised, peeking over her shoulder, not all all concerned with her attempt at privacy. "Wraps, seriously? Aren't we a bit optimistic?"

"Get out!" Sakura tossed said wraps after her sensei as he ducked out of the room. "Absolute wart!"

"Breakfast in ten!" he called back, speaking around what must have been a smirk.

When Sakura walked into the kitchen fifteen minutes later, fresh and ready for the day, she saw that her sensei was nowhere around. At the table in the adjoining dinning area there were two seats already set, and she had just made to take one when Deidara's call halted her. She turned to see his head poking through a window above the sink.

"Hey, Sprout, out here!" Why he hadn't just opened the glass door leading to the courtyard to speak with her, Sakura couldn't fathom. Deidara continued, "come out to the garden, yeah. Have something to show you."

Seconds later found Sakura staring at two tree stumps positioned next to each other, two feet apart, with her sensei standing between them. "Fascinating," she chirped.

Deidara gave her a flat look. "They're for training, yeah."

Was she supposed to chop them in half or something?

"It's simple. You stand between the logs, jump first up to this one," – Deidara hopped to the side, landing on the shorter piece of wood to his left – "then back to the ground. And then you hop onto the taller one, and back to the ground. That's one repetition."

Sakura followed Deidara's swift and clean movements as he went through the rep once more. She could see that it took a lot of strength and agility to perform the exercises so precisely.

"Easy, yeah?" her sensei said, cheerfully demonstrating for a third time (just to show off, in her opinion). "Do fifty of these every morning before you eat."

"_Fifty_?" she echoed, face scrunching with dread. Maybe ten or twenty, sure, but...

"Don't worry, yeah. That's only for the first week."

"Oh thank–"

"Next week it will be one hundred, then one fifty, and we'll cap it at two hundred."

"That'll take hours!" Sakura protested, feeling a bit ill already from the expected effort.

Deidara grinned. "You'll get the hang of it, yeah. Besides, it's good for the heart. I'll do mine with you – you'll see how quickly they go."

It did sound a bit better when he said he was going to be torturing himself right alongside her. So she acquiesced, stepping up to her own set of tree stumps while Deidara moved over to his (which were noticeably higher from the ground). For the first twenty, he took it slow, coaching Sakura through the motions and setting a reasonable pace. Then he promptly left her in the dust, figuratively, and finished his quadrupled set before she was done.

"You're," she gasped, bending double, "a pain." Deidara winked in a far too perky fashion and she scowled.

"Ready for breakfast then?" he asked. Sakura didn't think her stomach was in any shape for food, nor were her muscles quite so keen to move yet. All she wanted to do was curl in on herself for a good minute or two.

Deidara might have guessed as much from her crumpled posture, and suggested, in a dubiously gleeful manner, that she stretch her muscles out right after waking up next time. "You could have mentioned that earlier," she replied dryly.

He shrugged his shoulders. "Hey. I'm learning too, yeah," he answered evenly.

Sakura paused at that, realising that she hadn't even questioned Deidara's authority that morning. Had she so easily forgotten his age and relative inexperience in only one night? He was still just some kid, after all. A creative and boisterous kid, perhaps, but still some crabby teenager nonetheless. _He was still learning_...

"Here you go," he said, tossing Sakura the towel he had used to wipe his brow. She picked it from the air with two fingers and wondered if his freshly washed shirt from the drying line might work better. Unaware of her thoughts, Deidara entered the house with too much enthusiasm. "Time for a nutritional breakfast!"

Breakfast was some sort of floury flakes served in hot water with dried fruits – and was surprisingly delicious, Sakura decided as she finished her meal. She said as much as she joined her teacher at the basin for clean up (she leaned against the sink as he scrubbed at stubborn food).

"It's true, yeah. My talents as a chef are complimentary to my passion as an artist," Deidara quipped, not very serious at all.

Like any orphan, Deidara had probably been cooking for himself for a very long time. A lot of practice and lonely dinner talk. Sakura stopped studying his profile and turned away to frown at her unwarranted, rather too dramatic, observation. "What's the schedule for today?" she asked, more to distract herself.

"The norm. Kunai and shuriken target practice, katas, hiking out to a giant pit in the desert."

"...I should have expected something like that."

o o o

It was not a figure of speech, Sakura was disappointed to learn three hours later. They had walked _forever_ and stopped only once they stood at the edge of what was simply a really big hole. Twice the size of her bedroom, nearly twice as deep, and filled with rocks.

Sakura stood next to her sensei, the two of them swallowed in cloaks similar to the one the other Stone kunoichi, Meiko, had worn. Deidara had explained to Sakura that it was good to wear the swathes of light layers in the desert – the cloth protected the skin from sun damage and the air flow kept the body cooler.

Deidara didn't have any knowledge of sunblock, it seemed.

"We'll be working here every day until I think you're ready to move on, yeah. And you might want to take your cloak off now. It's not going to help when you're training."

"It's like a _thousand_ degrees out here," Sakura protested, waving her arms unnecessarily at the sun, as if her sensei might have missed it.

"Well, if you're a wind type – summon a breeze to keep you cool. Otherwise, I can't help you, yeah."

Sakura bristled. "That's just ridiculous! I only just left my academy, I don't even know my affinity! Let alone any jutsu based on it."

"Ah," her sensei looked sincerely confused. Then he sneered, clearly feeling superior. "What _do_ they teach you in Leaf, yeah? Gardening?"

A memory of all the female academy students attending a lecture on floral arrangement popped into her head, and Sakura quickly schooled her face. "Of course not," she lied, all the while feeling distinctly sour. "We just learned about other ninja stuff. Because I was at a ninja academy." And just to clarify, "for serious ninja."

Deidara raised an eyebrow and pretended to attempt to cover his laughter. "_For _serious_ ninja? Ha!_ You did, yeah, didn't you? Learn about planting pretty flowers?"

"How are you laughing at my academy? It's not like you went to yours!"

It sounded, and was probably meant to be, meaner than how Deidara heard her comment, but he just continued basking in his joyous smugness. "Because I was a _genius_, Genius." More chuckles, and then, on a stumbling breath of laughter, "_gardening..._"

"Flowers for _espionage_!" Sakura defended herself, cheeks hot (because of the sun, of course). "Any way, can you get on with explaining what I'm supposed to be doing here?"

Not waiting for his persistent snickers to fade completely, Deidara went over her task for the day. "This right here is The Pit. See it? Empty it."

Before Sakura could stop him, her sensei turned and fazed out of sight. He reappeared atop a nearby stone formation and waved to her cheerfully, looking quite a bit smaller in the distance. "I'll be right here if you need me, yeah!"

A spot below her hairline twitched as Sakura dutifully returned the gesture with a limp wave of her own. "Right. Ok." She peered down into The Pit, less than excited about the boulders of varying sizes filling it. "This will be fun."

Sakura worked strategically at first, moving the smaller stones and studiously ignoring the ones that looked to weigh half as much as she did. Unfortunately, with only one arm to help her climb out of The Pit, even the little rocks proved troublesome. She had barely made a dozen trips down and up before she dropped to a knee for a break, sweating and gasping.

Furtively, bringing a hand to wipe the sweat from her face, Sakura scrutinized her teacher. Deidara was still atop his stone pillar, sitting with his legs folded in front of him, a pile of papers and books visible in his lap. He went from scribbling in the texts to staring at his palms then back to reading and scribbling. She pouted, wondering why he spent his time sketching his hand while she pointlessly laboured away.

As she thought this, with her disgruntlement still marring her face, Deidara looked up from his notes to stare directly at her. He pouted similarly. "Hey! Get back to work, yeah!"

"It's too hard!" she whined.

"Just use your head!"

Sakura stuck her tongue out and then dived back into the pit when Deidara retaliated with a kunai. "Lousy artist!"

On the rocks again, Sakura picked one up and turned it over several times – trying to figure out which side would lay most comfortably against her skull. She'd seen the technique before, when one balances something atop his head while he walks. That was a thing, right? She carefully brought it to her head for about two seconds before deciding it was a terrible idea. "_Ow_-uh..."

"Not what he meant," she said to herself, after having paused and waited on account of some paranoia for Deidara's laughter at her tactic. "Back to the drawing board."

Falling into a cross-legged seat, Sakura glanced around at the pile of rocks and considered another course of action. _Empty the rocks._ That was all she had to do – but carrying out the rocks one at a time as she had been doing would take months. Was he really expecting her to do that?

Well, she could not say he would be one entirely opposed to the idea.

She massaged her muscles for a few minutes until she had decided on a new strategy. Peeking her head over the ledge of The Pit, Sakura very discreetly reached for her discarded robe, and then went about fastening it into a sort of sling that hung down her back. The effort paid off in that she now had two available hands for climbing, and the work went faster, but as the sun travelled steadily across the sky, she still failed to see any apparent progress of emptying The Pit. There was a simple, rather unimpressive pile of stones now just a few feet from its ledge and that was it.

Upon dropping down her thirty fourth stone, Deidara appeared by her side with a canteen and some other unknown little container. "Drink."

Sakura did so eagerly, not even bothering to wipe at the perspiration on her face or straighten her hair beforehand. How disgustingly exerted she may have looked did not even cross her mind. "Thanks," she said quickly between long, slow swigs.

"Here, take this off," Deidara helped Sakura shrug the sling from her shoulders. "Nice try, by the way," he appeared to note of it, though she could not say he was exactly thrilled about her device. But he didn't let her squawk in its defence, because, just as she prepared a retort, he ran his hands over her shoulders.

There was something cool and pleasantly tingling that he was smoothing into her skin, and she immediately guessed it to be the other thing he'd been carrying.

"It'll help with the sun damage," he said without her having to ask. She attempted to say "oh" in understanding, but couldn't summon the energy for it. The feeling of his callused hands covered in lotion was _interesting_ in some unexplainable way – so in lieu, she hummed her approval at his continued attention.

All too soon he was done and scooping out more for Sakura to use herself. "Get your face," her sensei instructed and she tried not to look too objectionable. And then, "I'll get your calves."

The trek back to Deidara's studio was not half as terrible afterwards. Still sore, Sakura admitted, but manageable.

"And what did you think of the training, yeah?" Deidara finally got around to asking.

"What was there to think of it, other than you must be trying to kill me while making it look like an accident?"

He snorted at her purposefully flat response. "Not getting it yet, huh, Sprout?"

"Moving rocks around? No. Not really." Perhaps it was just entertainment for him? Laughing at her as she toiled away for weeks, carrying out a menial task while slowly succumbing to dehydration and heat stroke?

Deidara smiled in a satisfied, smug manner and didn't comment further.

Yes, definitely for his maniacal enjoyment, she decided. The next few days were interchangeable in their progression. Hike to The Pit, carry rocks, bed, repeat. Her one great breakthrough had been on day two when she remembered to apply chakra to her feet to help her climb, but that excitement had dulled rather quickly as the "smaller" rocks gradually became larger and larger ones.

Sakura had the heaviest one yet on her back as she scaled The Pit wall on the afternoon of the fifth day. Her makeshift sling sagged uncomfortably, allowing the rock to grind at her back and swing uncooperatively, and several times she had to stop and try and shift it into place again. After the third such adjustment, Sakura was almost to the top when she heard the very upsetting sound of fabric tearing.

"_Kami_," she cursed and reflexively pried her hand from the wall grip to reach awkwardly for the snapped sling. Instead, unfortunately, her hand found the stone, and instantly her chakra-enhanced grip suctioned onto its surface.

The sudden weight attached to her outstretched limb didn't lose its falling momentum and Sakura yelped as it wrenched at her arm. Another noise, possibly more upsetting, come from her shoulder socket and then there was pain and confusion and lots of things happened all too fast for anything to really have happened.

Blue. Very clear, brilliant blue. Dazzlingly bright blue. And then more blue, centred around black and framed by more black and two harsh, blonde lines. Deidara's head, shadowed against the sky, hovered over Sakura's vision. Because she was looking up, she thought, feeling now that she was on her back. And then pain. Sakura groaned and sat up to rub at her shoulder and arm.

"Ah," Deidara carefully held Sakura's wrist and peered at her shoulder. He said, "this isn't terrible."

"It kills," she admitted, teeth clenched.

"Here, chew on this yeah. It'll help with the pain." Deidara held out some ordinary looking cloth, but she took it any way.

"Really?" she asked, marginally sceptical, before cautiously biting a corner of the little rag.

Her sensei rolled his eyes and reached forward to manually stuff more of the fabric into her mouth. "_Really_, yeah. Now stretch your neck that way and grit your teeth."

She obeyed, gritting her teeth out of annoyance more than anything. And while she was thinking just how much she doubted the power of the healing cloth thingy, Deidara pulled her arm and a very loud _snap_, accompanied by a greater amount of pain, interrupted her. She yelled and cried and swore for a good few minutes after.

"You could have mentioned what you were going to do," she sniffed, eventually having calmed enough to speak normally.

"It just would have given you time to worry about snapping the joint into place again, yeah. This was better." Deidara was actually smiling. It was weird to her because, for once, his eyes were relaxed, and she couldn't see the whites of his incisors or anything. "Go on, try it out if you don't believe me."

Her limb and joint moved just fine, but she could tell the area would be tender for a few days.

"What happened?" her sensei asked, moving back to allow her some room.

Sakura forgot her momentary displeasure to contemplate his question. She remembered the chakra she had infused over her hands to help her climb, but had it then just as readily stuck to the falling rock? It didn't seem too surprising in hindsight, given that both were of the same material, just different quantitative amounts.

"I slipped," she answered distractedly. Deidara would believe that, given his (lack of) faith in her.

He frowned minutely but didn't press the issue. "Figures, yeah." His lips quirked, "did you "slip" because you missed my company?"

"Like a dog misses fleas."

The afternoon continued. Her sensei had obligingly allowed her time to ice her arm and rethink strategies. Sakura was intrigued by her recent discovery, and so occupied herself searching for ways to test her question. At the top of The Pit, she found a few pebbles and rolled them in her hand, concentrating on holding them in place with her palm turned downward. They stayed.

With carefully controlled victory "whoo"s, Sakura went through varying levels of chakra for the pebbles, attempting to use the lowest amount possible for the given weight. Steadily she searched for increasingly heavier objects to test.

By evening, she felt confident enough in her ability with one hand to try the technique as soon as her other limb was recovered properly. She could not wait to show off to Deidara the next morning.

Except, Sakura did not know how to go about it. For one thing, she was primarily out of his line of sight down in the Pit, and for a second, more troublesome reason, she could not figure out how to apply her new trick to the task. The easiest way of carrying the weight of the stones was by using both hands, but then she was only able to use her feet to climb the wall. And it wasn't any less challenging to cradle the rock with one hand and climb with only the other to guide her movement, as the additional weight was exhausting in its own.

"Even the side of The Pit gets higher as I empty it," she murmured aloud, staring at said side, one hand raised to her chin thoughtfully. "The next step is to speed up the time to scale the wall, preferably while preserving energy."

This problem kept her work slow for several more days. Three weeks had gone by since she had first walked out onto the desert when she once again made a promising discovery. Before breakfast one morning, Sakura was practising her chakra grip again, this time focusing on more precise areas of application (just one finger pad versus the entire hand, for example), when, in boredom, she flicked at a pebble distractedly only for it to shoot across the gardens with enough force to "plink" loudly off Deidara's pail thirty paces away.

She stared for a moment, bemused. What had she done?

Unknowingly, she came to the wrong conclusion. "The chakra in my hand increased its strength!"

Which she ended up utilizing to her advantage anyhow once out in the desert. Remembering the squads of shinobi that would trek across Konoha to and from missions, Sakura could not believe she had not thought of this "new" technique until only now. At the bottom of the terrible rock-filled hole, she excitedly stretched her arms and shook her legs out like a runner does before a sprint. In front of her was a two-story high rock barrier – and it was her goal to jump to its top.

She bounced on the pads of her feet, welcoming the hum of energy that collected there. "Concentrate on the chakra moving through your legs," she coached aloud, "and feel the movement of the jump."

Her first attempt was only _just_ successful. The propulsion was there, aided by chakra, but the movement peaked with her awkwardly belly-flopping into the wall two metres above where she started. It ended rather pathetically with her delayed recoil, arms and legs prostrated like a starfish as she fell down.

It was unbearably trying and painful then figuring the correct way to use chakra to leap about. Sakura calculated angles and forces and muscle movement for hours, all the while avoiding imitating a bird who has flown heartedly into a glass door.

When Deidara inquired for lunch, she insisted on skipping, and vehemently opposed to him peeking down to check on her. "I'm working here! Don't look!"

"What? Did you catch your hair, yeah? Lob it off in a moment of panic?" Deidara asked her, standing where they both knew he could not see into the Pit.

"Ugh, _no_. I just...later, ok? I'm busy."

"Your loss," he said from around a mouthful. Throughout the rest of his meal he made sure to be as noisily content as possible, "Mmm-mm"ing and smacking his lips obnoxiously. Sakura tried to rub the dirt from her exposed skin and right her hair, just in case she looked too obviously like one who had been catapulting herself into a rock surface.

"Your pile here is still looking a little sparse, Sprout."

"Not for long!" was the last thing Sakura promised her sensei before he took to his perch again, presumably to sketch his fingers some more.

Her stomach was dismally empty hours later, but Sakura persisted into the twilight. As the sun merged with the horizon beyond her view, and the fine hairs on her body straightened with the promise of night-time chill, she hardened her resolve for the last attempt.

The height required more chakra than she had been allowing herself, but the nervousness that had followed her all day was quieting in her frustrated exhaustion. From across the expanse of the Pitt, Sakura eyed the opposing wall and took a deep breath. She leaned into the surface behind her and scraped her boots at the rocks beneath her feet. Another deep breath and then she pushed forward into a run, skipping across the uneven flooring until she was half-way through the bottom of the Pitt. One more stride and she was sinking briefly into the bend of her knees, feeling her quadriceps aching, then – flight.

Time slowed –her perception of it, at the very least– as Sakura saw the Pitt shrink beneath her, the wall of enclosure disappearing as she passed it. A smile broke across her tired face as she easily cleared the edge, nearing the apex of her jump.

And in that split second of halted motion at the top of her projection, Sakura's eyes latched onto Deidara's. Who was not at all on his stoop some ways off, but instead at the edge of the Pitt, standing stupidly some metres beneath her. Sakura felt her pulse jump as she caught his sight. Time sped up.

"Ah fuck!" her sensei yelped as her body collided, head first and limbs sprawling mindlessly, into him. They both tumbled as Deidara fell backwards, taking Sakura with him. They rolled over several times and came to a breathless halt a very long two seconds later.

On the ground, stretched out like two starfish, the student and teacher were quiet. Sakura could only hear her heart beating and her panting breaths. The first star had awoken in the canopy of the sky. Deidara was somewhere to her left, she guessed, she could hear him shuffling some in the dirt.

"That was unexpected, yeah," he said.

Sakura couldn't help the relieved, happy laughter that bubbled out at that.

Deidara was trying very hard to seem unimpressed the next day as Sakura perfected her new ability. He never complimented her or said anything at all to even recognise the achievement, but she would continuously catch him staring as she reappeared at the edge of the Pitt, cradling a boulder against her torso. She divvied chakra between jumping and gripping, switching from one area immediately to the other. It was in no way easy, but it was much faster and more efficient than before. Her "sparse pile" had quickly grown.

With each rock, her process became more streamlined, until it was no longer necessary to distinguish leaping and gripping; each action came naturally and simultaneously. The largest rocks suddenly seemed less frightening and she took to moving them out over the course of a couple of days. It had been just over four weeks when she dropped the last armful of stones onto her pile.

The dreadful Pitt was empty, its contents now spilled besides it like a resurfaced meal – as Deidara described it.

"_Eww_. That's gross," Sakura moaned, dropping her cocky smirk at her sensei's comparison.

"I'm serious," Deidara said, looking anything but as he waved his arms at the her collection. "It's like the thing got sick everywhere."

She rolled her eyes and tried not to mirror his emphasizing gestures. "Well I don't know! What do you want me to do about that?"

It was the wrong thing to ask, because Deidara instantly smoothed his motions and almost slithered next to her with his slimy, satisfied air. Sakura groaned as he wrapped an arm over her shoulder and announced, with his ever present, devious merriment, "why how _wonderful_ of you to inquire, my dear student!" She continued to whine and try to wriggle from his weird side-hug, but he just got louder and more delighted in response. "Because yes, indeed, there is something to be done! And you can certainly help, yeah, dearest little Sprout! Stack them! Stack the boulders and make me a pretty something to look at!"

Sakura's inaudible whine ended with an annoyed, "you're the worst."

Deidara laughed and launched her towards an odd grouping of boulders. "It'll be fun!, yeah"

"It's never fun." She pulled a face and dodged the expected kunai.

"Fun!"

Like those from all societies before her, Sakura decided to build her stack in a pyramid structure. She started to move the largest rocks into a broad base of support, but was stopped at the end of the day (hours into the task), and informed by her teacher that he wanted a tower.

"Cylindrical, yeah? You can do that."

It took her eight days.

Deidara spent time playing with arts and crafts while she calculated and toiled away. She constructed the tower following a spiral progression around a solid centre, learning to account for foot and hand grips as she gained altitude. Larger stones gave way to smaller ones from bottom to top, the structure looking like a gradient spread of desert minerals.

"Makes me think of mosaic pieces," Deidara said, actually sincere.

Sakura had just finished and was herself admiring it when he'd shared the almost-compliment. She looked up at his profile from where he stood beside her, trying to hide her small smile with a squint against the glare of the sun. She asked, ready to worry, "what now?"

"Time to go home, yeah."

There was another round of bubbling giggles ready in her chest, relief and accomplishment right within her grasp – he continued, "so you can rest plenty for the next task."

Without having to fall at all, Sakura's spirits crashed spectacularly.

"The worst, the worst!" rose into the air along with Deidara's laughter.

o o o

Two days passed more slowly than any of the weeks previous. Sakura woke early to do the morning warm-ups and have a meal with Deidara, but was otherwise free to lounge around. It was very disconcerting. Her sensei made no indication of what she should be doing, so she remained uneasily wired and tense the entire time. Even when stretched out across a bench in the gardens, sunning there while pretending to read, she waited for him to appear suddenly with a new chore.

On the third day, Deidara actually kept her company some, intermittently chatting with her as he meandered around the gardens. The lazy talk and agreeable weather eventually lulled her into a relaxed stupor. Her sole task seemed to be refreshing their cucumber water (which was something a little exotic to Sakura).

"And any how, the guy in the banana suit disappeared into the trees and that was the last I saw of him. And the monkeys, come to think of it. After that they never bothered hanging around our house again." Sakura finished her story later that night, yawning heavily as she had already snuggled into her futon.

Deidara was on the other side of the screen, still standing and walking around from what she could hear. "Yeah, but did you ever get the gutters fixed?"

"Oh, I guess not," she answered sleepily, unable to keep her eyes open. "Wait, that's right, one of the genin teams did the work later that summer."

Her sensei snorted, and followed it with a typical snide comment. "_That's_ what Konoha genin do, yeah? Priceless."

Sakura yawned again, completely unperturbed, and waved a hand dismissively. "Yeah, yeah. Good night, Sensei."

"Sleep well, hmm," he answered and Sakura didn't remember anything after that.

A splash of lukewarm water doused her head hours later. Having grown accustomed to waking herself over the past month, Sakura sprang from her bed like a cat with its tail on fire. She sputtered and cursed gratuitously, blindly stumbling for a moment or two before she could right her mind and situation.

She wiped at her eyes and wrung her clothes out while preparing to snap at Deidara, but his normal cackle and smug countenance was completely absent. She kept craning her neck around awkwardly a little more, still trying to spy her teacher, when she finally noticed a piece of paper at her feet. It had some water drops on it, smudging the words scrawled in ink across its surface, "_Meet me at the Pit in two hours. __Full gear__._"

__Signed with a large, important "D".

Sakura raised one eyebrow at the mysterious demand. Two hours was barely enough time to walk that far into the desert, let alone carry out their morning routine. Shrugging her shoulders, she went about getting dressed and grabbing some recognisable fruit from the kitchen before starting her hike.

The walk was almost enjoyable now. She had gotten accustomed to the landscape, able to recognise certain rock formations and had even learned something about the plant life in the desert. The air was dry and the sun determinedly hot, but there was a beauty to the baked orange of the ground and the clarity of the saturated blue sky. Peculiar little bugs, resembling beige coloured ants, or perhaps crickets, supplied the soundtrack, creating an unmistakable "humm" that she often associated with summer afternoons.

It was sort of peaceful, she thought, letting her eyes drift close as she walked. She breathed deeply and let a smile grace her lips. Something razor sharp sliced through the corner of her ear.

Sakura tensed, her heart suddenly lodged in her throat as a wave of searing pain shocked through her system. Her gaze muddied with unbidden tears, distorting a figure that appeared in front of her. Curse words and exclamations clamoured in her mind, slowing it as the person adapted an offensive fighting stance.

The figure had draped layers of black material around him, covering everything but his eyes. That was all she could discern.

There was a fist in her face, barely missing her nose as she fell into an automatic back roll. An ax kick followed her to the ground, prompting her to spring to her feet again. The chakra that propelled her evasive movements was automatic and liberating, doubling the distance she would have otherwise gained. Her attacker, however, was keen to shadow her. Another assault of punches and intermittent kicks forced Sakura into a defensive retreat. All she was able to do was block, each blow hitting her forearms with their full strength.

It hurt.

She closed her eyes.

"Don't do that, yeah!" Her arms, caught by the wrists, were wrenched away from covering her upper body. The attacker held them at her sides as the two came to an abrupt halt. She panted and felt sand and dirt in her mouth, sent into the air from the brief scuffle, and had to blink several times to clear her vision.

Warm, calloused finger tips. Bright eyes only somewhat obscured by shadows.

Sakura wanted to punch herself, or more appropriately, her sensei. "Deidara! You-you-you-"

Ass? Jerk? What was the term she was looking for?

Her sensei released her arms to latch onto her shoulders, probably to make it easier to shake her, which he did. "Never, _never_, close your eyes dumby!"

_Dumby?_ "What the _hell_?" she snapped. "Is this your idea of a joke?"

"It was meant to be training,yeah. Aren't you a ninja?"

Sakura's protests ceased. As did her jokes about his costume. Her glare fell from accusingly throwing mental daggers into her sensei's face to land somewhere on the black armour protecting his chest. The abstract thought that Deidara was probably very hot in those clothes flitted through her mind. She was more concerned with how scared she had been a few seconds ago, or rather, concerned with berating herself for allowing such a weakness.

"I can't believe they even gave you one of these." The hands were at her nape, fiddling with the tie of her hitai-ate.

A part of her wondered the same.

The fiddling continued until the familiar weight of her village insignia slipped away. The metal hung in front of her, suspended at just the right distance to allow her to focus on the metal. The leaf symbol lazily turned this way and that.

"So I will be taking this then?" Deidara asked, snatching the hitai-ate away to wrap it around his neck.

It took a moment for the image of Deidara wearing a leaf insignia, _her_ hitai-ate, to sink into her brain. And then another moment for the overwhelming feeling of annoyance to seize her. Sakura reached out to grab it, but her sensei danced away from her hand.

"I said I'm taking this. You don't want it back, yeah? Is that what you're saying?"

"Ok, laugh, laugh. Very funny." He dodged again. Sakura's frowned resurfaced. "Seriously!"

It turned into a chase. Running across the desert, jumping over rocks, skipping to avoid the odd gecko, climbing up ledges, attempting to push her sensei off said ledges. To her delight, the game was actually _fun_. And not as difficult as she might have thought. After just a month of toiling away in the Pit, her strength was unquestionably greater, as was her stamina. Even the harsh environment had somehow dulled compared to how she had felt upon first arriving in Iwa.

Deidara was talented, she realised. Despite his odd fascination with doodles and lounging about admiring his hands, he was incredibly lithe and durable. He was effortlessly evading Sakura while managing to challenge her all the while. As an opponent, while refraining from using any jutsu, he proved plenty formidable.

Though his taunts could use a little work. He leaned heavily on the 'sprout' theme.

Between a volley of punches, he joked, "geez, all I need is a bottle of herbicides, yeah?"

His smile was wide and self-congratulatory, his eyes closing with the high curl of his lips.

Sakura's hand closed over her hitai-ate. Her grip caught, dragging her along with Deidara's movement as he backed away. His expression had just started to turn to surprise when the heat of the metal finally registered in her mind. "Shit," she snapped, whipping her hand away.

In his stupor, Deidara didn't even flinch to avoid her retreating appendage, instead taking a full slap to his jaw. He stumbled, caught her arm after the contact, and then proceeded to full backwards.

The fall would have been comically exaggerated in her response to her flimsy hit if it hadn't been for the fact Deidara was pulling her along with him. Right over one of those ledges they had been skimming all morning.

Sakura was indeed a ninja, she decided a good many metres later. Where she was crouching rather unperturbed, though bruised and dusty, at the bottom of the fall, her sensei was spread across the desert floor, limbs flailed out in all directions. In his black attire, he looked a little like an ink stain.

"You ok?" she ventured, not doubting his health for a beat. Sakura poked at his boot.

He raised himself after a minute, staring directly at her. Wordlessly he unwrapped the blue material from around his throat and tossed the forehead protector to her. Matching his earlier hundred watt smile with her own, Sakura stared down at the shining plate, admiring the styled groove on its surface.

In her happiness, she missed the curious look that crossed over her sensei's face.

O O O

**Author's Note:** I really, really enjoy these two. When other things in Naruto lose my interest, these characters remain quite provocative.


	4. On the Way

**Title:** Expedient

**Summary:** In order to cement a truce between the two villages, Konoha and Iwa exchange recently graduated academy students. Fortunately, if anything were to go wrong, Haruno Sakura was just average enough to risk losing. AU.

**Disclaimer:** Unfortunately, I do not own Naruto or any of its affiliations…I am merely borrowing its characters and settings to indulge my own fantasies and then share said fantasies with other people who equally do not own Naruto. I am not making any profit off this.

**Author's Note: ** Having some fun in the fandom again^^ This story does have the random OC meandering in and out, but I am NOT a fan of using OCs so that they overwhelm canon characters. But ...they do sort of have to exist.

**Chapter Four:** On the Way

O O O

_On the walk, obvious and small_

O O O

There was no weather in Iwagakure, Sakura mused one day as she squinted upwards to the sky. Squinting partially from the ever persistently bright sun, and partially from tears.

The wooden bat cracked into her forearms once more.

She tasted salt as sweat ran between her lips. No weather even to distract her from her sensei's new torture -_rather_- training routine. He seemed to be favouring the hard style martial arts ever since their spar the other week, finding that her defence was less than satisfactory.

"The truth is, Sprout, there will always be times when you can't dodge an attack. Might as well prepare your body for it."

Her entire body, she found out. From her arms to her shins, to her chest and stomach, shoulders, toes, anything; even her ears, one still smarting from being nicked. Granted, some of the exercises did not consist of beatings, as the current one featured, but they were all equally as physically and mentally laborious. Meditating while balancing a cauldron full of boiling water on her abdomen was one of the less extreme methods Deidara had given her.

"Half way through," he chirped. "You're over the lump."

"It's 'over the hump'," she corrected before another loud crack split her ears.

"Nag, nag, nag. Is that all you can do?"

"Don't I deserve at least that? You _are_ hitting me repeatedly with a reinforced piece of wood that would splinter from steel being driven into it _only_ at 4000 pounds over force."

The sound of a door sliding open interrupted Deidara mid-swing, and the two looked over to find an attractive young woman teetering into the courtyard. "Oh, Sakura-san," the woman said in a cultivated, dulcet tone. It was Otsuka-san, the liaison who had greeted Sakura when she first arrived in Iwa.

With a pronounced grumble, Deidara lowered the bat to his side, leaning on it casually as the guest took her time stepping carefully over to them. She was wearing a yukata and sandals which, while pretty, were not suited for the damaged and odd stone pathway.

"What can I do for you, yeah?" Sakura gave her sensei a stern look. He added, reluctantly, "Otsuka-san?"

Ignoring the question, Otsuka-san took a few minutes to worry and chide over Sakura's condition. Sakura felt her cheeks warm, wishing the mothering could have been done in private and not in front of her ninja instructor. "I'm fine, fine," she insisted as pleasantly as possible.

When finally satisfied, though only _just_ judging by the cute purse to her lips, Otsuka-san produced a scroll from within the sleeves of her outfit. "It's from the Tsuchikage. It appears you have a mission."

Deidara let the bat clatter to the ground as he swiped the paper away, eagerly tearing through the seal. After scanning the text, his excitement immediately dimmed, his pout securing his features. With dramatic disdain, "_ooh._ I see. _We_ have a mission."

Sakura perked up at this, temporarily ignoring the pain, and similarly plucked the scroll from Deidara's hands. She expected weeding, retrieving groceries, sweeping temple stoops, but Deidara really was not fibbing about Iwa's different approach to ninja training.

"A security check?" She couldn't decide her reaction. Fascination? Disappointment?

Deidara rolled his eyes, clearly bored with the prospect. Sakura's first impulse was to nag him about being difficult, but she stopped short. Deidara was standing (one hip cocked _very_ slightly) with his arms crossed over his front, and while normally this was humorously comparable to a spoiled child – the cut lines of his biceps and deltoids evident even beneath his mesh tee spoke volumes of Deidara's lifestyle. He was active, he enjoyed physical work. And going from what she had learned about his personality, he didn't exactly appreciate being bored.

As it was, he already had to deal with a greenhorn that wasn't even from Stone.

She wilted.

Otsuka-san misinterpreted this, taking the fallen expressions to mean hesitation. "Of course, because of Sakura-san's recent training, I can request a delay for your start date. Allow you some time to recover and be properly prepared for the mission." The young woman smile reassuringly, unaware of her mistake. "You won't have to worry about your student this way, Dei-kun! She'll be ready to join you in peak condition."

Sakura saw Deidara's eyebrow twitch and smirked when he withheld from correcting the woman. It would have been too cruel even for him, given Otsuka-san had flexed her own, rather absent, bicep mucle and was sporting an encouraging victory sign.

"Thank you, Otsuka-san," Deidara forced between a grimace and dubious attempt at a smile.

The guest was oblivious to his aggravation and seemed satisfied. "Very well! I'm looking forward to your reports, Dei-kun, Sakura-san."

And then she teetered away just as adorably and awkwardly as she had entered. After the door slid shut once more, Deidara slouched over with a long sigh.

"I guess it's not the most thrilling objective," Sakura tried diplomatically. She bent down to pick up the bat, clenching her teeth as she gripped it, and tried to offer it to Deidara in hopes of cheering him up. Forming a fist caused splitting fissures of pain to shoot up her arms. Chakra ran to her fingers automatically, compensating for her inability to fully curl a fist, and alleviated the pressure instantly.

Her sensei raised an eyebrow at the offer and then frowned. He took the stick and tossed it carelessly over his shoulder. "Be careful, yeah. Any way, that's enough for now. You heard the lady, time to rest up."

As he sulked away, she asked, "what is Keryiat like?"

That was the name of their destination.

Deidara's tone was remarkably flat. "Keryiat's up north of here. It's a mining town."

o o o

Walking was tiring. Sakura had wrapped her legs and arms as best as she knew how, even allowing her sensei to help, but moving in general was still a hassle. She remembered days in the academy when she would feel like collapsing after an obstacle course or two day expedition exercise – this was worse. No matter how exhausted she felt, even the task of sleeping was not easily manageable. Any little adjustment made itself known to her. Everything was sore.

And yet she felt happier than she remembered feeling as a student. She missed her friends, of course, but she felt as if lately she had been smiling more. As she moaned with the stress of rearranging her pack, it occurred to her that she might be a sadist. How did one find torture and extreme levels of stress to be a happy thing?

Sakura chanced a furtive peek at Deidara, who was walking next to her, and twisted her lips contemplatively.

It wasn't that Iruka-sensei had ever doubted her, on more than one occasion he'd even praised her, it just seemed that perhaps his support was more coddling than anything. The Haruno family was not a ninja clan, and therefore it was a notable accomplishment when Sakura scored higher than her pedigree classmates...though notable only because it was not expected to happen.

In fact, it hadn't always been encouraged either. Senior ninjas were not interested in perfect test scores from a Haruno, they looked for perfect test scores from a Nara or a Hyuuga. And from Sasuke. But then – so had she.

"We're almost there, yeah," Deidara murmured, catching her attention. For the last morning of their hundred kilometre trek, he'd been increasingly quiet. Which was almost suspicious coming from him. While not exactly chatty, Deidara did have strong opinions on varying subjects, and he was normally curious about her responses. He was also acutely observant, and then eager to comment on the things that had intrigued him.

"Are we? How can you tell?" With no map, and a rather interchangeable surrounding, she was curious.

His response was nodding his chin to the sky in front of them. Between two of Earth Country's greener and more magnificent mountains, there was something obscuring the sky.

Unlike the hidden village, decidedly in the middle of a dry, rocky desert, this part of the country was climbing ever closer to a maritime climate. Literally climbing, in Sakura's opinion, as they'd been gaining altitude continuously over the entire route. It made sense, according to her general knowledge of geography, as the country's northern region was dominated by a vast coastline. It meant the land and the weather were different.

There were more clouds, for starters.

Against those clouds, as her sensei had indicated, Sakura could just see a dark haze stretching up from the crux of the two peaks. Smokestack waste, she belatedly identified. A part of her started to understand Deidara's subdued disposition.

As they passed the final curve of the mountainside, the lush and healthy plant life fouled under the plumes of Keryiat. Sakura could easily discern a break between the better protected southern mountainside and the plant life directly exposed to the mining operations. From the road's vantage point above the city, Keryait's urban sprawl was low and wide; a random spattering of drill towers and chutes spiked upwards above the roofs, cart lines suspended stories off the ground jumped from building to building, and chimneys belched a thick, constant stream of pollutants into the air. All of the structures were composed of random cuts of tin or exposed beams, and all of it stuck somewhere on the grey scale.

Deidara was silent as they descended into the industrial deluge.

Soon the noise of economic drive filled the void. There was the rhythm of pumps, the hum of generators and batteries, and the churning of smelters all conglomerating to create a strange chorus that sang of hard labour. Then there was the sheer amount of labour itself.

The city was packed with people: tall men, stocky women, gangly children; all of them covered in a fine layer of mining dust. Some were engineers or managers, and others clearly miners, but everyone was a part of the grey crowd filling the streets.

Sakura could not decide where to look first. There was so much noise, so much clamour and din, so many faces. Too many young faces, she thought, honing in on a throng of academy age children. They moved like little sentinels, looking to have come from a long shift with their half lidded eyes and drooping postures.

One of the girls in the line was almost Ino's twin – but five kilograms lighter. It was not nearly the satisfying physique she might have thought it would be.

Startled by this revelation, Sakura was too preoccupied to avoid bumping into one of the many people hurrying through the streets. Her canteen clattered to the ground, knocked free in the collision. "Sorry," she offered immediately, twirling around to apologise.

Not entirely sure if it was the person she had hit or not, nonetheless a worker had found the canteen and held it out for her. The woman smiled, as if unsurprised by the obvious outsider's fumblings. "Here you are."

"Oh, thank you," Sakura said sincerely, bowing respectively to the woman. When she straightened, however, the woman's smile had faded, replaced instead by a sneer.

"Some nerve," the worker said around a curled lip, huffing and turning away quickly. "Unbelievable..."

Sakura, entirely confused, shrugged and jogged to catch up to Deidara. _Weird_, she thought. But then, she amended, maybe it wasn't... All around her, people walking by would spot her and within a moment adapt a disgusted look.

She could have sworn someone spat very loudly at her feet just after she had passed. _Am I imagining this?_

Ok, that time she was definitely not mistaking it. Her eyes had drifted to a man seated at a food stand, and given his rather unattractive and slightly scary visage she had ducked her head somewhat as they approached where he was eating. His eyes had scanned over by chance at first, but then very obviously jerked back to glare at her. For a good three seconds she felt trapped under the stranger's scrutiny. She frowned warily as he proceeded to push his seat out from the stall and say something indiscernible to one of his buddies. At once, four very surly people had all focused their attention on her. She deepened the furrow in her brows and shrunk away instinctively, glad that they would soon be behind her. As she continued to move, Sakura kept a very careful eye on the group.

Just as she was about to sigh in relief, the band of four started to follow her and Deidara. Sakura snapped her head around and swore. "Deidara," she hissed, but her sensei ignored her, distractedly glowering around at the bleak and decrepit city. "_Deidara!_" she tried again, jabbing him the arm for good measure.

He turned to her, grousing, "_WHAT, _yeah?"

She swallowed heavily and whispered, "there are some people following us."

This didn't seem to faze her teacher much, but obligingly he glanced over his shoulder. He rolled his eyes when he spotted the group. "Thieves?" he wondered aloud before halting in the middle of the street. "I'll take care of this."

Sakura gripped the straps of her bag as she hung back, for a second actually thankful for Deidara's blunt approach to everything.

His blond, pony-tailed head barely passed some of the shoulders of the miserable people now glaring instead at Deidara. Some words were exchanged, the first bit coming from her sensei, things like "problem" and "me" and "yeah".

The man who'd first spied Sakura answered. He practically snarled as he spoke, wringing an axe he was carrying. Then an odd thing happened.

Deidara turned back to look at Sakura, but instead of meeting her worried, curious stare, his eyes found another point above her brow. His normal cockiness was gone and his eyes were wide.

Sakura felt her chest seize uncomfortably, unused to this expression.

Deidara turned to the miners for one last second before he was suddenly propelling right towards her. He covered ten metres before Sakura could fully register his movement at all. And then he was in front of her.

"What-" she attempted, cut off as Deidara pulled her fully against him. She crashed into his body, arms stuck to her side as he clamped tight across her back and _flew_.

Almost, any how. Sakura could hardly tell that Deidara was running at all, there was just a lurching force as he pushed from the ground, and then a rush of wind surrounding them as he moved. She was crushed against him with the speed and his unwavering grasp.

They stopped on a small, somewhat obscured roof, a wave of air and kicked up particles following a second after. Sakura's face was flat against Deidara's sternum, held in place by an insistent hand at the back of her head. His heart was racing in his chest. She could hear it perfectly, aware that it matched the pace of her own.

"Shit," her sensei breathed, drawing the syllable out. "That was fucking close, yeah."

"Deidara?" The question was muffled against his chest. Their position was a little painful for her.

He released her slowly, bringing both his palms up to either side of her face. Tentatively, Sakura watched Deidara's face for some sort of explanation. But again he wasn't meeting her eyes. His arm moved, and she felt the ever present weight of her hitai-ate slip away.

"I got so used to seeing you in this." He trailed off, "I didn't even consider..."

Everything clicked. Sakura slammed her palm into her forehead. "Oh, _dumb_! Dumb, dumb, dumb." Punctuating each one with another slap.

"Of course they'd be pissed seeing a Leaf kunoichi here. They have issues enough with us _Iwa_ nin." He swore, and again, "that was close, yeah."

"Do you think word will get around?" she asked, clutching the head band to her chest once Deidara had handed it over.

"Hmm. Pink haired Leaf nin in town? _Noo_, that won't be talked about."

"Ugh, fine." Sakura huffed. "Well? What do we do? Henge?"

"Do you feel like you can hold a henge for hours at a time, yeah?"

She didn't answer, instead rested a hand on her hip and cocked an eyebrow. _Better idea, genius?_

He did have a "better" idea, it turned out. An hour later Sakura was hovering anxiously in the middle of a broken into barracks room. Deidara had just returned from a short absence with a paper bag under his arm, smiling slyly like a satisfied cat as he slipped through the window.

The sight of one of her sensei's more normal expressions eased Sakura's trepidation, if briefly. She was immediately suspect when he all but sauntered to the single night stand between two bunk beds. With his back to her, she could hear some rustling and other vague noises, but was clueless to his actions.

Deidara faced her again, smile still on his lips. Glancing at the opened box on the table behind him, Sakura drew her brows together as she tried to see what it was in the uncooperative light of the setting sun.

Pictured on its front was a pretty, smiling model with her hair spilling over her shoulder. "Oh no," she said, crossing her arms across her chest with recognition. "No, no, no!"

"It's no big deal, yeah." There was a little bottle in his plastic covered hands.

Sakura wasted no time diving to the window, fingers glowing with chakra, ready to bolt – sore limbs be damned. A strong hold wrapped around her middle and in a blink she found herself in the room's tiny attached bathroom. "Relax," her sensei all but purred, too happy with his plan.

_Hell __no!_ She tried to claw herself from Deidara's grip, wriggling and twisting with mounting panic. "Wait, wait! Sensei, wait! Please?"

He directed her away from the door, out manoeuvring each of her desperate lunges. It took another moment for Deidara to get her to the sink, where Sakura was spitting like a cat as he shook the bottle of brown dye over her scalp. He stood at her back, bending her forward over the porcelain ledge as she tried to beg and scrape away from her horrible fate.

"Come on, come on!" she insisted, reaching around frantically with a free arm, trying to latch onto an escape route. Deidara had disabled her right hand his his own, and kept her lower limbs still by crushing her waist into the sink with his hips firmly pressing into her.

There was a horrible, indescribable noise as he emptied the bottle onto her head. The dye concoction was cool on her skin as it landed in her prized locks. One sustained whimper continued well into Deidara applying the rest of the colouring.

"You ass," Sakura accused weakly, giving up on running away now that the deed had started. She felt like crying. "You're a total ass."

"Whatever," he said, his voice low and still the tiniest bit smug. "Why don't you just relax, yeah."

_Or can you not even handle this, Leaf Kunoichi_, she imagined him adding.

Reluctantly, she did begin to let her haunches drop. After a while she was rather pliant, contented both by his ministrations and the unintended warmth of him standing so close. There was something enjoyable about the way he was working his hands through her hair, alternating between massaging and combing. It was firm but slow and steady.

She sighed. From her throat.

Deidara's hands slowed and then stopped altogether as he stepped away. She had to peek an eye open at this, not too aware they'd actually drifted shut. "Sensei?"

"I'm done. This needs to set. Rinse it lightly in about twenty minutes." His purr had dissipated, she noted absently.

"Ok..." but the door was already slamming shut.

o o o

Later that evening, two people slinked through the back alleys of Keryiat. One was a disgruntled brunette girl and the other was a rather striking young man.

"I can't believe you get to wear a henge," Sakura growled. She was petting her hair, now hanging down one side of her front in a braid, and glaring at her sensei's obvious jutsu-enduced visage.

She knew for a fact he would sooner croak than stain his platinum hair pitch black.

"I'm capable of maintaining it, yeah," he reminded her. The style had changed as as well, free to fall down his back instead of tied up in the typical ponytail. His clothes, like hers, had been switched to a tailored two-piece gi. Around their forearms and above their ankles were matching sets of black wraps.

Surprisingly, these few changes had worked effectively enough. Sakura didn't recognise herself at all.

"Ass," she repeated for the millionth time. After Deidara sniggered and again refused to feel anything relative to sympathy or remorse, she changed subjects. "How are your clones?"

Sakura was referring to the two Deidara had set off earlier for the outskirts of the town, one as himself and the other transformed to look as she had that morning. He was hopeful they would help detract any lingering suspicion about the two real shinobi who were about to report for the mission.

He inclined his head. "Fine, yeah." And then he groaned, worrying her, before he declared, "this would be so much better if you could, I don't know, _use_ some ninja techniques."

Rolling in her eyes for her naivety, she took his bait. "What do you mean?"

"Using chakra for faster travel." He stopped walking to bring a hand to his chin contemplatively. Sakura backtracked to stand with him. Deidara was staring at the ground very seriously. Then, aloud, "I could teach you now, yeah."

Sakura looked around and took note of the lopsided, erratic architecture around them. Split levels, oddly hanging rooms, rickety fire escapes, random piles of unused materials, abandoned scaffolding, discontinued cart tracks, lines and lines of leaking pipes. Randomly nailed everywhere were hazard signs.

"Alright," she agreed, shrugging her shoulders. Both people present, though neither mentioning it, knew that Sakura had already nearly taught herself how utilize chakra in such a way.

He explained what else he could. "It's not just about leaping over a ledge onto your feet, you've got to gauge distance and quickly understand your environment. There'll be obstacles and tight spaces, yeah. And sometimes you'll have to use your hands to swing or vault. You'll need to think about what can support your weight, and for how long. Or how your angle of impact could screw you if you're not careful, yeah. And the faster you go, the harder all of that becomes."

_Maybe too soon, after all_. She swallowed thickly.

"Ready?"

Her sensei didn't leave her a choice; he was gone before she could shake her head 'no'. "Ugh! You jerk, Deidara!"

It was a nasty habit how he always took off so readily, simply assuming she would somehow scrape after him.

Four minutes later she landed on the balustrade of Keryiat's most distinguished building, elbows knocked, hair dishevelled, and lungs screaming for air. Too winded to care, Sakura rolled slash collapsed forward to land sprawled on the seventh floor balcony.

Deidara's face, curtained by ebony hair, blocked her view of the ceiling. "Could have done better on the finish, yeah," he teased, offering a hand. She exhaled heavily and gathered herself before graciously accepting it.

"I might have also broken one or two things," she mumbled sheepishly, thinking back to the roof she'd accidentally slammed a foot through.

"Think they'll notice?" was his sly response. Sakura shared in it. She was glad to see her sensei had come back to himself a little. He tagged on, "now for Mr. Tootsi."

"Tsuji." The name of their client.

Deidara waved his hand absently. "Same difference."

"Jomu-san is fine."

Sakura started at the sudden arrival of a third person. Standing just beyond where she and her teacher were huddle was a man. He was middle aged and dressed well, with a stern but not altogether unappealing face. He was also their client, further reflected in how he managed to avoid the grey coat of dirt everyone else in the area wore.

Deidara looked nonplussed, making Sakura wonder if he had timed saying the name incorectly with the man's arrival. "Reporting from Iwagakure," her sensei said, flat tone back in place.

"Tsuji Jomu-san." Sakura bowed in greeting, trying to recover from Deidara's rude address.

"Hn," Tsuji returned. He walked to an open door and directed, "my office."

He disappeared inside, leaving the student and teacher to trail behind. Deidara scoffed and mouthed a choice word for their client. Sakura was admittedly tempted to agree.

The room was the nicest thing she had so far seen in Keryiat. It was modern and comfortable, very clean. Behind the large desk, each stationed in either corner, were two hulking masses of muscle. No one acknowledged the hired guns.

Tsuji sat down in a very plush chair and steepled his fingers as he considered both Deidara and Sakura. He decided to address the former.

For the first few minutes they talked, the conversation was one-sided. Tsuji went on about manufacturing and production, how the mining and refinery business was one way of strengthening both Earth and its hidden village, and how important it was to maintain good revenue.

Sakura was not exactly sure how this was related to their job until finally Tsuji became quiet. He moved to slide a single manilla file across the polished wood of his desk, letting it rest in front of her sensei.

"I'm sure you'll find nothing disagreeable," he said.

Deidara hadn't inched once during the whole speech. Very slowly, he reached to retrieve what she guessed was their check list. What did it include? She hadn't seen any fencing or guard towers, or anything that resembled security aside from the two silent figures in the office.

Tsuji said, catching her immediately attention, "you could not have arrived sooner, Shinobi-san. Two foreign ninja were seen in the streets today. Walking around casually, if you could imagine."

Her sensei feigned some reaction at this, assuring he would deal with this problem first. More words were exchanged, none of which she contributed, and then they were dismissed, given a week to carry out the job.

"Sensei," Sakura tried once they had returned to the balcony, but her teacher said nothing before taking off into the shadowy city. It was difficult following him without the tell tale glare off his normally blond head. Over rooftops and between elevated tracks, she would only catch a glimpse of his shadow from a dull light here and there. She eventually became aware that they weren't going back to where they'd rented a room earlier. Frustrated after crossing a rather long and shabbily tiled roof, only for Deidara's silhouette to disappear again over its edge, she called out, "this isn't funny any more, Sensei!"

She peaked over the edge into a poorly lit alley that was intermittently obscured by rising puffs of smelly steam. There was an outline of an old run of scaffolding about a story down. Rolling her eyes, she dropped to it, disappointed when she landed more heavily and loudly than she would have liked. An inappropriate word slipped through her lips, just before a hand clamped over them.

Immediately she was struggling and hissing, but then a familiar voice whispered to her to quit barking, "yeah."

The hold was withdrawn. She seethed, as quietly as could, "a little warning next time!"

There was an unamused response, then a signal for her to stay silent and to follow closely. The scaffolding they were on ran along the side of the extra long building, parallel to a line of filthy, near opaque windows. There was a lot of noise coming from inside, and after straining to see why, Sakura realised they were looking into another large barracks. There were lines beds and swarms of people hurrying between them. Some mattresses were already occupied.

"What are we doing here," she asked, not bothering to whisper any more. She really doubted anyone would be able to hear them.

Deidara kept his eyes on the people below them, a crease between his eyebrows. "These are our targets. _They're_ the security risk."

O O O

**Author's Note:** Leave a review~ They're very tasty.


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